The path to overall victory for Primož Roglič at this Vuelta a España grows narrower and steeper, like the road from Asturias’ cider capital of Nava towards the summit of Les Praeres. Given Remco Evenepoel’s sparkling form, the finale to stage 9 was always likely to be an exercise in damage limitation for Roglič, and so it proved.
The climb to Les Praeres was just under 4km long but its bitter gradients meant it was certain to pack a dizzying punch. Evenepoel, the man of the moment, began his forcing scarcely 500 metres into the climb, and while Roglič was among the few able to withstand his initial volley, he had to relent with a little over 3km remaining.
Asturias has been kind to Roglič in Vueltas past, including a year ago, when he crowned his third overall victory with a solo exhibition on the road to Lagos de Covadonga. On Sunday afternoon, Roglič’s was a deflating kind of solitude. He battled the gradient alone as younger men – not just Evenepoel, but also Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) and Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos) – bobbed away from him.
With a mile of hard road still to come, Roglič was already 40 seconds down on Evenepoel, but he stemmed the flow somewhat on the final ramps of Les Praeres. Roglič reached the summit within sight of Rodriguez and Enric Mas (Movistar), though he conceded 52 seconds to Evenepoel. As the Vuelta breaks for its second rest day, Roglič remains third overall, but his deficit on Evenepoel has now yawned out to 1:53.
Roglič has always been economical with his words, in victory and defeat, and he preferred not to speak at all here when approached by reporters at the summit of Les Praeres and again when he reached his Jumbo-Visma team bus in Nava. Maybe the road had already said enough.
“Primož is not 100 percent yet, but he is close and still in the fight,” Jumbo-Visma Directeur Sportif Grischa Niermann said. “We hoped that Primož could stay with Evenepoel, but no one could follow Remco. He is not the leader for nothing. This was also a fair climb. The best drove away from the rest.”
Roglič arrived at this Vuelta with question marks over his form after he suffered two broken vertebrae during his latest ill-starred expedition to the Tour de France, and the opening exchanges offered mixed answers. Victory at Laguardia on stage 4 briefly put Roglič in the red jersey, but he shipped over a minute to Evenepoel on the ascent to Pico Jano two days later.
On the first part of the race’s Asturian double-header at Colláu Fancuaya on Saturday, meanwhile, Roglič steadied his challenge by matching Evenepoel all the way to the top, but he entered stage 9 thinking only of restricting his losses to his young foe.
“We also didn't expect him to drive away from Remco, because then we would have chased and drove for the stage win. Today we wanted to limit the damage,” said Niermann, who insisted the operation has been partially successful. “The hole is big, that's right. But Primož has limited the damage, and we still have two weeks to go.”
Even so, Roglič will have to hope that Evenepoel’s striking momentum begins to stall sooner rather than later. The Belgian may be callow in Grand Tour terms, but his lead is already stretching to a point where only a jour sans could deny him victory in Madrid. Roglič would ordinarily welcome Tuesday’s time trial to Alicante as a chance to recoup his losses, but this time out, he faces a rival who will be every bit as enthusiastic about the 30.9km test.
“I don't expect a big gap between Primož and Remco on Tuesday, but there are also other riders on whom we want to take time,” said Niermann. “We will continue to fight, but of course we would have liked to have been closer.”
That fight has been complicated by the loss of Roglič’s key mountain domestique Sepp Kuss. The American was surprisingly subdued on Colláu Fancuaya, and Jumbo-Visma didn’t have to wait long for an explanation. Kuss came down with a fever on Saturday evening and withdrew from the race before the start of stage 9.
Speaking to Eurosport before the start in Villaviciosa, directeur sportif Addy Engels acknowledged that Kuss, 8th overall a year ago, was an irreplaceable part of Roglič’s supporting cast in Spain.
“No one,” Engels said when asked who could step up to the mark instead. “I think a good Sepp is with the best five or ten climbers in the world, so it would be unfair to Robert Gesink or Sam Oomen or whoever to say they have to take his place. We have to make the best plan possible now to support Primož, but we also have to be realistic. Without Sepp, Primož will be a bit more on his own, I guess, on the final climbs.”
That was certainly the case at Les Praeres. Another individual effort, on the road to Alicante on Tuesday, will reveal the full scale of the task ahead.
