There may not have been a stage win or a red jersey waiting for him atop the Puerto de Ancares, but this still had all the feel of a vintage Primož Roglič afternoon at the Vuelta a España. The wickedly steep slopes of the ascent clearly lent themselves to his talents, and the Slovenian responded by doing what he’s been doing as a matter of routine on this race since 2019.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe first advertised their leader’s intentions by setting a supersonic pace from the foot of the Ancares. Then, as the gradient bit in earnest, Roglič steadily dialled up the heat, burning all-comers off his wheel and striding ever closer to final overall victory in Madrid. So it goes.
The vintage Roglič show extended to the media scrum past the finish line, where he shrugged off the magnitude of his performance with the kind of line that, depending on one’s interpretation, was either the wisdom of a savant or a throwaway remark from a weary bike rider who wished only to reach the sanctuary of his team bus as soon as possible.
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“I mean, sometimes you win a bit, sometimes you lose, eh,” Roglič said. “Today I’m on the right side.”
That was something of an understatement. After his teammate Daniel Martínez had stretched the red jersey group beyond breaking point, Roglič unleashed his decisive acceleration with a shade over 4km to go. Only Enric Mas (Movistar) and Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) could initially follow, but they would wilt under the weight of Roglič’s forcing further up the climb.
By then, the red jersey Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) was already floundering and shipping time. Roglič’s effort ultimately saw him put some 1:55 into O’Connor, and he now trails the Australian by just 1:21 in the overall standings, though he insisted that he wasn’t fully aware of the race leader’s travails on the Ancares.
“Not really, you know. The only thing I can manage us myself,” Roglič said. “I tried to do my best together with the team and like I said, it was enough.”
Confidence
Roglič arrived at this Vuelta still smarting from his latest heartache at the Tour de France in July. Although the 34-year-old has shown himself to be most adept at bouncing back from such psychological wounds to win the Vuelta over the years, his physical state remained a question mark before this race. Even after picking up a brace of stage wins in the opening week, there have been concerns about the lingering effects of the vertebra fracture he sustained in July.
The last of those doubts will have surely been allayed after this exhibition. Gaining almost two minutes in the space of 4km on a struggling O’Connor was one thing, but riding Mas off his wheel was something else altogether. Mas would concede more than a minute to Roglič by the top of the Ancares, and the Spaniard is now 1:40 behind him in the overall standings. O’Connor may continue to wear the red jersey, but Roglič is clearly the man to beat, though he was reluctant to linger too long on the big picture on Friday evening.
“It’s nice to gain something, it’s nice when you go good,” he said. “But these hard efforts, I feel them, so you have to go day by day, eh.”
When a line of Red Bull riders took over at the front of the GC group at the foot of the Ancares, it was hard not to think of Roglič’s past existence with Jumbo-Visma, when the yellow and black jerseys would remorselessly squeeze the life out of a bike race like this until the Slovenian was ready to jump away and win it.
‘Roglification’ was the term coined by the journalist Daniel Friebe to describe the phenomenon, but Friday’s reprise was a sort of ‘Roglification Light.’ This time, Roglič wasn’t sure enough of his footing to have his team ride all day for the stage win, which was claimed by Michael Woods from the early break. Instead, Roglič crossed the line in 16th place, almost 11 minutes behind Woods.
“Like I said, I don’t feel maybe completely confident yet,” Roglič said. “We were a bit conservative. We just have to take it day by day and see how it goes.”
On Friday’s evidence, confidence shouldn’t be a problem from here to Madrid.
