Primoz Roglic
(Foto: © Roth&Roth / SCA)
Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) won the 8th stage of the Vuelta from Úbeda to Cazorla and on the final climb Enrique Mas (Movistar) came in second. Third place went to Mikel Landa (Soudal-Quick Step) with a gap of 14 seconds. Roglic and Mas had caught the last rider from the breakaway group of the day, Harold Tejada (Astana Qazastan), in the final kilometer.
The leader of the overall ranking, Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), came in 17th, 46 seconds behind. In the overall ranking, his lead over Roglic is now only 3:49 minutes. The new third place is Enric Mas (4:31 minutes). The previous third place, Joao Alemeida (UAE Emirates), lost 4:53 minutes to the day’s winner today and slipped to 26th place in the overall ranking.
With his success, Primoz Roglic also took over the mountain jersey from Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto Dstny). In the points classification, Wout van Art (Visma | Lease a Bike) remains ahead of Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
This is how the stage went:
The 8th stage of the Vuelta ran over 159 kilometers from Úbeda to Cazorla. The profile of the stage with 2700 meters of elevation was particularly appealing to breakaway riders. The stage was accordingly hard-fought from the start. At one point a group of 38 riders had broken away from the field, but were caught again. For 60 kilometers, one attack followed another until finally eight riders came together and were able to build up a larger lead over the peloton over a longer period of time. Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla), Gijs Leemreize (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL), Harold Tejada (Astana Qazastan), Sam Oomen (Lidl-Trek), Mathis Le Berre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Luca Vergallito (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) and Oier Lazkano (Movistar) were at times more than 5 minutes ahead of the field, in which Decathlon-Ag2R-La-Mondiale controlled the pace.
On the climb to Puerto Mirador de las Palomas (2nd category), Leemreize initially fell back from the breakaway group. The seven remaining riders still had a lead of around three and a half minutes at the summit – 54 kilometers were still to be completed at this point. In the peloton, Israel-Premier-Tech in particular had pushed the pace. Schmid won the mountain classification ahead of Le Berre. On the descent, Tejada and Schmid attacked and were able to pull away a little, but the other breakaway companions later caught up again. Just under 20 km from the finish line there was the only intermediate sprint of the stage, which Tejada won ahead of Izagirre. The peloton was less than two and a half minutes behind – and the gap continued to shrink. Le Berre lost contact at the front, while Lazkano, Vergallito and Tejada were able to pull away. The decision about the day’s victory was made on the almost 5 km long final climb to the Sierra de Cazorla. The three escapees still had a lead of 1:10 minutes when the climb began. Tejada immediately switched to attack mode, only Lazkano was able to follow at first. There was a crash in the peloton at the start of the climb, which slowed down many riders, including Alexander Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe). Teammate Primoz Roglic attacked with Enric Mas (Movistar) on the rear wheel, while Joao Almeida (UAE Emirates), third in the overall ranking, fell back. Ben O’Connor in the red jersey was also no longer seen at the front of the peloton and was unable to hold onto his team mate Felix Gall’s bike at the end of the stage.
Roglic and Mas caught up with Tejada just under a kilometer before the finish. Roglic did not let the sprint for the day’s victory slip away, Mas came second. As the best of the breakaway group, Tejada finished in 7th place. Ben O’Connor reached the finish line in 17th place, 46 seconds behind. The day’s results caused some changes in the overall ranking.
