The 2024 Vuelta a Espana showcased two of the race’s abiding qualities. Firstly, the at times chaotic nature of the race that means serious riders can sometimes take serious time by getting in the right break. Secondly, the glut of opportunities to take time on your rivals if you can climb better than they can.
I want to break free
On Stage 9 of the 2021 Tour de France, Australian rider Ben O’Connor got in the break, stayed away, and finished six minutes ahead of the main contenders. The victory saw him vault up 12 places in the general classification to second – the only man within five minutes of Tadej Pogacar. He went on to finish fourth overall.
On Stage 6 of the 2024 Vuelta a Espana, he repeated the trick. With about 30km to go, he and his last remaining breakaway companion had a gap of about five minutes or so on the peloton.
O’Connor felt that was enough of an advantage that he could ride on alone and still be ahead come the finish, even if the pace picked up behind him – which it surely would.
And it did. But not by much much. In fact not by as much as O’Connor increased his own pace, because somehow he was 6m31s ahead of everyone by the line.
Primoz Roglic, who had been leading until that point, wouldn’t have been too bothered about losing the red jersey in itself, but he’d probably banked on having just a few seconds to claw back. As it was, fatigue, disorganisation and O’Connor landed him with a sizeable 4m51s deficit.
It was a spectacular end to a stage that had begun in the prosaic environs of a supermarket.
Yes, literally inside a supermarket.
Don’t take away my breakaway
From then on, the shape of the race was essentially set. Three-time winner Roglic looked the strongest rider uphill, but O’Connor was committed to defending the whopping great head-start he’d earned himself.
If this kind of situation were to come about in the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia less than a week into the race, the stages when the stronger climber would look to recover time would be obvious. There’d be a handful of summit finishes and the pursuer would seek to exploit each one to the maximum.
The Vuelta isn’t like that. Primoz Roglic didn’t look at a mountaintop finish and think “this is my big chance” and go absolutely all-out in a bid to brutalise his rival. Stages 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19 and 20 were all summit finishes. Plenty of the others were mountainous or had sharp climbs in the closing kilometres.
So Roglic chipped away.
I’ve regularly highlighted how the Slovenian’s responses in interviews are matter-of-fact to the point of comedy. Asked how he fancied his chances of winning the Vuelta after reclaiming a bit of time on Stage 8, he said: “I’m going every day full racing … we’ll see.”
So that’s what he did. Fifteen seconds here, twenty seconds there and then, finally, decisively, 1m49s on the Alto de Moncalvillo at the end of Stage 19 to retake a lead, which wasn’t likely to be surrendered on either of the two remaining stages.
Utterly bizarrely, Roglic seemingly hadn’t planned on taking quite that much time and only did so because some of his team-mates ignored his orders.
“I said I don’t need the stage [win] but, er, yeah, I mean… I will not say their names, but some guys decided, ‘yeah, we don’t listen to anyone – we pull’.”
Why the reticence? Name and shame them, Primoz!
Whisper it, but maybe they were right though. It’s not like it didn’t work out for him.
Roglic duly completed the overall victory, equalling Spaniard Roberto Heras’s record of four Vuelta wins.
For his part, O’Connor was happy not just with second place, but simply with having been in the lead at all. “I’ve led a WorldTour race for one day in my past and now I’ve led La Vuelta a España for two weeks,” he said.
As for Roglic, he was typically effusive about equalling the record for overall Vuelta wins.
“It’s nice,” he said.
Who knows when the next report will appear on this site? Certainly not me – and I write the thing. As such, it’s probably worth signing up for the email so you don’t miss it.
You can technically buy me a coffee or a Belgian beer if you like the writing here, but given my Vuelta coverage amounted to a preview and this piece, I won’t be holding my breath.
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