{"id":751704,"date":"2026-08-27T19:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T19:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/751704\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T19:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T19:18:14","slug":"tadej-pogacar-battles-back-from-scare-on-descent-to-win-stage-six-of-vuelta-a-espana-vuelta-a-espana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/751704\/","title":{"rendered":"Tadej Pogacar battles back from scare on descent to win stage six of Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a | Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tadej Pogacar outsprinted Enric Mas to claim victory in stage six of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> on Thursday, his third stage win of the race.<\/p>\n

The Slovenian and Mas outshone their rivals on the gravel in the stage\u2019s final climb, and Pogacar held off the Spaniard when arriving in Castell\u00f3n de la Plana to extend his general \u00adclassification lead. The five-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, the \u00adoverwhelming favourite for the Vuelta, is aiming to complete a Grand Tour grand slam.<\/p>\n

Ramses Debruyne grabbed the third spot on the podium, finishing in a group including Primoz Roglic, Richard Carapaz and Felix Gall, 46 seconds behind the leaders. UAE Team Emirates\u2019 Pogacar, who had a brief scare as he came off the road on the final descent, now leads Movistar\u2019s Mas by 3min 34sec and his compatriot Roglic by 4min 21sec\u00a0overall.<\/p>\n

There was a big battle to get into the break but it took a long time for an escape to form. Finally 15 riders moved clear and established a two-and-a-half minute gap on the peloton with 40km remaining. The final climb of Puerto El Bartolo split up the break and then peeled on to a gravel road, where Pogacar attacked and picked off the riders ahead of him. Mas was hot on his tail and the Spaniard dug deep to charge past Pogacar and come over the top of the climb ahead.<\/p>\n

Pogacar came off the road and into a grassy section after misjudging a corner, but he swiftly recovered to get back on Mas\u2019s trail. The four-time Vuelta winner Roglic, Gall and Debruyne were chasing the front two, but Pogacar and Mas worked well together to keep their advantage. Pogacar led out towards the finish line and Mas could not catch him.<\/p>\n

It was a bad day for Oscar Onley, who lost more than a minute and a half on his general classification rivals.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, the Netcompany Ineos rider Josh Tarling abandoned the race with around 120km of the stage left, with his team not giving a reason. The Briton\u2019s brother Finlay Tarling died in the Tour of Portugal after a crash with a vehicle, but Josh decided to race in Spain in honour of his sibling. \u201cJosh Tarling\u2019s brave La Vuelta has come to an end and he\u2019s decided to stop. We couldn\u2019t be prouder,\u201d said Netcompany Ineos on social media.<\/p>\n

Tarling produced a strong display in the first stage individual time trial, coming third behind Pogacar and Ethan Hayter.<\/p>\n

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On Friday, riders travel 149.8km from Vall D\u2019Alba to the race\u2019s second summit finale at Aram\u00f3n Valdelinares.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadej Pogacar outsprinted Enric Mas to claim victory in stage six of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a on Thursday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-751704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}