{"id":759472,"date":"2026-09-04T07:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T07:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/759472\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T07:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T07:38:12","slug":"enric-mas-extends-vuelta-lead-as-omrzel-grabs-first-grand-tour-stage-win-vuelta-a-espana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/759472\/","title":{"rendered":"Enric Mas extends Vuelta lead as Omrzel grabs first Grand Tour stage win | Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spain\u2019s Enric Mas extended his overall lead in the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> with a late attack on his rivals as Slovenia\u2019s Jakob Omrzel won stage 12 to Calar Alto on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Movistar rider Mas burst out of a chasing group including red jersey contenders Primoz Roglic and Felix Gall with around \u200b13km of the mountainous 166.6km ride left and powered away. Roglic and Gall, who began the day second and third on general classification, could not respond as Mas finished 27 seconds clear of Roglic to strengthen his hold on the race.<\/p>\n

Omrzel attacked from a whittled-down lead group on the final ascent and kept the power down to cross the line almost two minutes clear of \u200bUrko Berrade with Santiago Buitrago third. Aged 20, \u200cOmrzel is younger than the Slovenian \u200cgreat Tadej\u00a0Pogacar was when he won his first Grand Tour stage.<\/p>\n

Mas took over the leadership \u200cwhen the overwhelming favourite and clear race leader Pogacar crashed out on stage eight<\/a> and on a baking hot day in southern Spain on Thursday, he put down a big statement of intent for the remaining stages. The Mallorcan now leads by one minute and 45 seconds from Roglic with Gall at 2:06.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really happy with the team today, really proud of them,\u201d said Mas, who was \u200chelped by Ra\u00fal Garc\u00eda Pierna on the final climb to the Vuelta\u2019s highest summit finish this year at 2,153m. \u201cTo take 27 seconds on Roglic is really important \u200bfor the next week. I was confident today and I knew the climb.\u201c<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s Oscar Onley was the biggest loser on the day in the battle for overall victory as a crash meant he finished more than two minutes behind Mas.<\/p>\n

After some initial climbs, a 30-rider breakaway group formed after 40km including Wout van Aert who took useful points in both the points \u200band mountain categories. Omrzel and L\u00e9o Bisiaux \u200battacked on the day\u2019s penultimate climb \u200bbut were brought back near the top, then on Calar Alto, Omrzel made \u200bhis move. Berrade \u200cwas the only \u200brider to hang on \u200bbut could not resist as Omrzel powered on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not surprised because I know how much work I put in, and I knew that these days were going to come sooner or later,\u201d Omrzel said. \u201cBut for sure, I was not expecting 100% to do it on my first Grand Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Tim Merlier dominated the first sprint finish of this year\u2019s Tour of Britain to win stage two in Skegness.<\/p>\n

Tim Merlier celebrates his victory on stage two of the Tour of Britain. Photograph: George Wood\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old Merlier, making his debut in this race, had sat on the wheel of his rival Olav Kooij going through the final left-hander and then spotted a gap to launch his sprint early \u2013 opening an advantage that nobody could close. Kooij came in second, just ahead of Irishman Sam Bennett at the end of the largely flat 181km stage from Boston.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s stage winner, Lewis Askey, was in the front group of 37 riders to retain the overall leader\u2019s jersey, 12 seconds clear of Tim Wellens in the overall standings. Filippo Ganna, who began the day second overall, suffered a poorly timed puncture and could not chase back. He tumbled out of the top 10. Agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s Enric Mas extended his overall lead in the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a with a late attack on his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-759472","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\/759472","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=759472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}