Vuelta a España: Primož Roglič powers to mountaintop win on stage 8 to cut into O'Connor's GC lead

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Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) continued his fightback on stage 8 of the Vuelta a España, trumping atop the steep ramps of the Sierra de Cazorla to take his second stage win of this Vuelta and, more importantly, put nearly a minute into race leader Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).

After taking bonus seconds on Friday to begin to claw back the near-five-minute deficit that had yawned open during O’Connor’s stage 6 raid, Roglič was rewarded with even greater inroads on stage 8 with another aggressive display.

With the stage coming down to the punchy category 3 final climb, measuring 4.8km at 7.1% but with ramps well into the double digits, it was prime Roglič territory, and he didn’t disappoint, launching a volley of attacks to shred the bunch to pieces.

His third big dig took him clear, with Enric Mas (Movistar) the only rider able to follow but powerless to do anything about the three-time Vuelta winner’s vicious finishing kick on the vicious gradients inside the final 500 metres. Mikel Landa (T-Rex-QuickStep) launched a late charge from a rapidly fragmenting GC group to take third place on the stage.

Behind, O’Connor was in a world of trouble. The red jersey had been quick to respond when Roglič launched his first acceleration towards the bottom of the climb, but quickly unraveled under the barrage of attacks. He had teammate Felix Gall to lean upon but soon they were off the back of the main GC group and inside the final kilometre O’Connor couldn’t even hold Gall’s wheel.

O’Connor hauled himself to the line down in 17th place, 46 seconds down on Roglič, which, coupled with the Slovenian’s 10-second time bonus, amounted to a 56-second concession of his overall lead. The Australian is still in red, still with 3:49 in hand over Roglič, but it was quite the dent for a medium-mountain stage and a very short climb, and Roglič, having drawn blood, will sense more in Sunday’s far-tougher excursion into the mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

“The opportunity was there, and I went for it. It was hard, hot. I was lucky - I had the legs to take it today,” said Roglič, who played down his resurgence by indicating he’s still feeling the effects of the back injury that derailed his Tour de France.

"I'm going every day full racing, just see how I will respond to all of this input to my body after a hard period with my injury - I still feel it, so we’ll see."

With the red jersey on his shoulders, O’Connor was the most glaring GC sufferer, but far from the only high-profile rider to lose time. The defending champion, Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike), was caught in a crash at the very foot of the final climb and, despite rejoining the back of the splitting GC group, was tailed off towards the top and conceded 1:07 to Roglič. 

Meanwhile, João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), third overall at the start of the day, suffered from the approach to the climb and shipped nearly five minutes, in a huge blow to his podium ambitions.

With nine riders finishing within half a minute of Roglič, the battle for the podium is more open than ever. Mas was best-of-the-rest on the day and moves up to third overall, 4:31 down on O’Connor and 42 seconds behind Roglič. The white jersey Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) is now fourth at 5:00 after another impressive ride, while Landa’s eye-catching third-place finish catapulted him into fifth at 5:13. Less than a minute separates places 4 through 12.

Fast and furious start

After only one man showed any interest in the breakaway on Friday, it was quite the opposite as the bunch flew out of the traps in Úbeda, with attacks flying from kilometre-zero and nothing settling down for well over an hour.

The green jersey and double stage winner Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) was among those sneaking into moves, as was Friday’s animator, Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates), but the groups came and went without anything being allowed to form. The pace was so high that the bunch split on separate occasions, in a frantic first hour in which almost 50km were covered.

At this point, with just over 100km to go, the breakaway did finally start to form, with three riders going clear initially: Mauro Schmid (Jacyo-AlUla), Gijs Leemreize (dsm-firmenich-PostNL), and Harold Tejada (Astana Qazaqstan). Two separate chase groups then formed, with three in the first – Ion Izaguirre (Cofidis), Oier Lazkano (Movistar), and Luca Vergalito (Alpecin-Deceuninck) – and two in the second – Sam Oomen (Lidl-Trek) and Mathis Le Berre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels).

Before too long, the three groups merged to form an eight-man breakaway, and the foot was finally taken off the gas in the peloton, where the GC leaders stopped for nature breaks to signal an end to hostilities. The gap grew to four minutes, which was where O’Connor’s Decathlon-AG2R men pegged it for 10km or so, before allowing it to drift past the five-minute mark.

That was the cue for a surprise package at the front of the peloton - not AG2R and not Red Bull, but rather Israel-Premier Tech, with a trio of contenders in Michael Woods, Dylan Teuns, and Matthew Riccitello. They split the peloton briefly as the gave chase on the rolling roads that paved the way to the first climb of the day: the Puerto Mirador de las Palomas (7.3km at 5.7%).

The climb was the work of one man, Riley Sheehan, who set a steady but strong tempo to take nearly two minutes off the breakaway’s advantage. Up front, they were down to seven after Leemreize immediately and bizarrely fell away, but the remaining riders collaborated to the top, where Schmid beat Le Berre to the maximum collection of mountains points.

However, on the long descent, which was punctuated by short kickers, the alliance was called off, first by Schmid who attacked the downhill bends and went clear, soon joined by Tejada. The rest of the group split a couple of times on the kickers, and even when it came back together, Lazkano, who’d bee dangling off the back for several kilometres, attacked straight away as the hostilities continue.

After Decathlon had let the gap ease back out on the upper part of the descent, Israel came back to the fore to take it back to 3:30 with 30km to go and then truly started ripping into it. It was down towards the two-minute mark by the intermediate sprint with 20km to go, where Tejada claimed points and bonus seconds that weren’t contested. And despite the breakaway realising they needed to work together, they were no match for a peloton where other teams started to come forward alongside Israel on the uphill roads that paved the way to the final climb.

With 13km to go and the gap down at 1:30, the games were reignited, with accelerations from Vergalito, Tejada, and Lazkano, who clipped clear as a trio and moved back out towards two minutes. However, the fight for position ahead of the final climb saw another surge in pace and effectively took matters out of the hands of the break. At the back of the bunch, there was a warning sign for Almeida, who was right at the back and clearly struggling before things had even kicked off.

The final climb

Tejada attacked just ahead of the climb and took a lead onto the steep opening ramps, but it was all eyes on the peloton’s approach, and there was immediate drama. Red Bull immediately lit it up with Dani Martinez leading out Roglič, and almost instantly there was a split behind them, which took out their own teammate, Alexandr Vlasov, and saw the likes of Kuss held up.

It didn’t take Roglič, in aggressive mood since losing the red jersey, long to hit out, and when he did O’Connor sprang straight into response. Eight riders initially moved clear, Richard Carapaz using an EF Education-EasyPost teammate to drive things on before other riders, including Kuss, rejoined on a flatter section. However, Roglič soon hit it again, and this time O’Connor was slower to respond, Mas instead being quickest to get on terms in what was a portent of what was to come.

As more riders came across, Roglič settled back into the group but not for long, winding up a third attack that would decimate the group for good. Mas impressively worked his way across, the the pair of them quickly went clear as a duo, catching the three breakaway riders in turn and heading into the final kilometre for some significant time gains on such a short climb.

Behind, O’Connor initially looked to have things under control as he used Gall to set the tempo, but it quickly became apparent he was in trouble as they slipped back through the group and then saw more riders go past them. O’Connor even started to lose the wheel of his own teammate, and come the steep ramps of the final kilometre is was every man for himself, and he simply had to drag his tired body to the line to limit the losses, which were nevertheless far greater than anyone would have expected.

Landa made an impressive charge from the fragmented scattering of chasers to close in and ignite his GC bid but the top two on the day were clearly Roglič and Mas, with one man standing clear of the other. Mas attempted to take charge inside the final 300 metres and cleverly took the lead and the choice of line through a series of tight twists. 

However, the road opened up in the final 100 metres, allowing Roglič the space to hit out and grab the 14th Vuelta stage win of his career and - after a bizarre spanner in the works on Thursday - reignite his bid for a record-equalling fourth overall title.

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