Vuelta, Dunbar stage, Roglic one step away from final victory

Eddy Dunbar won the twentieth and penultimate stage of the Vuelta a España, the 172 km Villarcayo-Picon Blanco, the real highlight of the Spanish race, with a very tough uphill finish. The Irishman from Team Jayco AlUla won alone, beating the Spaniard Enrique Mas (Team Movistar) of 7″ and Primoz Roglic (Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe) by 10″. The Slovenian now has a 2’02” lead over O’Connor in the general classification and a 2’11” lead over Mas himself. Only the Madrid time trial (24.6 kilometres) on Sunday 8th is missing, but the Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe captain is now one step away from his fourth victory in the race after his successes in 2019, 2020 and 2021, a record shared with Roberto Heras. For Slovenia, it will be the third success out of three in the major stage races of 2024 after the Giro-Tour double in Tadej Pogacar. For Roglic, just one shiver before the start of the stage: three of his teammates, Martinez, Vlasov, Gamper and Denz were forced to withdraw. According to Spanish TV, a person within the German team is hospitalized with symptoms attributable to salmonellosis.