Vuelta a Espana

Roglic moves close to leader O’Connor

Primoz Roglic(Bild: AFP or licensors)

The Slovenian Primoz Roglic has made up a lot of time on Vuelta leader Ben O'Connor at the mountain arrival at Puerto Ancares. The Red Bull star caught Felix Gall's Australian Decathlon team-mate by around two minutes on the very steep final climb on Friday, and his gap to O'Connor is still 1:21 minutes ahead of the next mountain stage on Saturday. 

The day's victory after 176 kilometers and 3,700 meters of climbing was secured by the Canadian breakaway rider Michael Woods.

The 37-year-old Woods from the Israel team celebrated his third Vuelta stage win after 2018 and 2020 well ahead of the first chasers. Last year, he also won a section of the Tour de France. This time, Woods held his own in a larger breakaway group over ten minutes ahead of the classification riders around Roglic.

O'Connor lost contact with Roglic in the lower part of the 7.5 km long final climb. Supported by Gall, he initially kept the damage within reasonable limits. In the final phase, his once again stronger noble helper Gall got the green light after all, and the East Tyrolean crossed the finish line around a minute behind Roglic and ahead of O'Connor in 26th place on the stage. Gall moved up one position in the overall classification to eighth place. He is only around one and a half minutes behind third-placed Enric Mas (Movistar).

Around 20 km before the finish, two UAE pros from the breakaway group crashed heavily on a descent. The winner of the opening stage, Brandon McNulty, was thrown over an embankment and suffered bleeding wounds. However, the US-American continued and even reached the finish ahead of Roglic. If things continue to go so well for the Slovenian, he should slip into the red jersey by Sunday at the latest. Roglic has already won the Tour of Spain three times.