{"id":768571,"date":"2026-09-12T18:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T18:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/768571\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T18:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T18:18:09","slug":"enric-mas-heads-for-vuelta-glory-after-protecting-lead-on-penultimate-stage-vuelta-a-espana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/768571\/","title":{"rendered":"Enric Mas heads for Vuelta glory after protecting lead on penultimate stage | Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Enric Mas all but secured overall victory in \u2060the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/vuelta-a-espana\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> when he survived a brutal penultimate stage \u2060on the \u2060sun-baked \u200bslopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The 31-year-old Movistar rider \u2060spent most of the 186km stage in a group alongside Primoz Roglic, \u2060Felix Gall and Richard Carapaz \u2013 the only men \u200bwho could deny \u200chim the \u200cred jersey \u2013 and simply refused to crack.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Looking \u200cperfectly in control up the steep and winding final 9km climb to Collado del Alguacil, the Mallorcan rider comfortably protected the 1min 37sec advantage he held \u200cover Roglic after 19 stages and even stretched his lead at \u200bthe climax.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">With only Sunday\u2019s ceremonial stage around the city of Granada to come, Mas looks certain to become the first Spanish rider \u2060to win the Vuelta since Alberto Contador \u200b12 \u200byears ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Veteran Mikel Landa (Soudal\u2013Quick-Step) \u200bmade it a perfect day for \u200bthe \u200chome nation as \u200bhe \u200bpowered up the Collado del Alguacil to take the stage victory, his first stage win for seven years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Enric Mas all but secured overall victory in \u2060the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a when he survived a brutal penultimate&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-768571","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\/768571","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=768571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}