Outside the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team bus, Primož Roglič was sitting on the turbo trainer happily dispensing a gnomic assessment of his day’s work for the reporters who had gathered around him. “I always say it’s better to gain something than to lose, eh?” he smiled.
As ever with Roglič, his body language said more than his words. The complexion of this Vuelta a España looks altogether more amenable after he clawed back 37 seconds on maillot rojo Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) on stage 11 to the Cortizo Technological Campus in Padrón.
Roglič still had some 3:16 to recoup on the Australian, but as the Vuelta passed its midpoint, this had the feel of a line drawn in the sand. The serious business starts this week, and, for now at least, the momentum seemed to be with Roglič.
“There’s still quite more than 35 seconds to go,” he said. “But yeah, obviously, I’m definitely happy. Happy with how it went, happy with how I had the legs and especially happy about the guys. We showed nice racing. In the end sometimes, you win a bit, sometimes you lose, but as long as we are executing the way we want, it’s a win for us.”
Roglič surely gained more than he could have anticipated on the stage, won by Eddie Dunbar from the day’s sizeable early break. While the sharp climb of Puerto Cruxeiras in the finale clearly lent itself to Roglič’s talents, it wasn’t immediately obvious that the ascent would allow him to discommode O’Connor.
Red Bull were certainly minded to try, however, with Roglič’s guard setting a ferocious pace on the lower slopes. Aleksandr Vlasov deployed as the last man, and he delivered the kind of carefully weighted assist that his namesake Aleksandr Mostovoi used to produce in these parts in the 1990s in the colours of Celta Vigo.
When Vlasov swung over, Roglič gratefully bounded clear, with Enric Mas (Movistar) the only man immediately able to follow on the 10% slopes. Towards the summit of the climb, a group including Mikel Landa (T Rex Quick-Step) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) managed to bridge up to Roglič and Mas but, crucially, O’Connor was distanced along with Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost).
Roglič, Mas et al maintained their advantage on the fast drop over the other side, and O’Connor’s hefty buffer suddenly looks a little more manageable, not least with a series of summit finishes to come in the days ahead.
“The situation was how it was,” Roglič said breezily as he lifted himself from the turbo trainer and began to walk towards his bus, deftly ending the media huddle like a presidential candidate on the campaign trail. “In the end it worked out well. It was a nice day.”
A plan according to Vila
Before the stage got under way, Roglič’s Directeur Dportif Patxi Vila had been adamant that Red Bull’s overarching strategy for this Vuelta had not changed as a result of the lead O’Connor surprisingly amassed last week. They would, Vila insisted, stick to their preordained playbook rather than redraw their plans on the hoof in a bid to crack O’Connor.
“Before coming here, we had a strategy, which was how to get Primož to Madrid in the quickest time possible, and we will stick to that,” Vila told Cyclingnews on Wednesday morning. ‘OK, now things changed a bit because Ben is in front, but we shouldn’t get distracted by that. We have a plan and we’re sticking to that.”
The second week of this Vuelta includes summit finishes at Manzaneda and the Puerto de Ancares on the next two stages and then a tough finale atop Cuitu Negru on Sunday, but Vila was quietly insistent that the opportunities to gain time were not limited to set-piece mountain days.
“Look, every day here is more than 3,000 metres of climbing, so that means that every day will be an opportunity,” Vila said.
Prescient words. Red Bull would make their intentions for the stage clear on the run-in to the final climb, though Vila explained after the stage that Roglič ultimately had the final say on the day’s tactics. The Slovenian fractured a vertebra in a crash at the Tour de France last month and so, much like the NFL's Peyton Manning at the line of scrimmage, he has the authority to call off a play depending on how his back is holding up.
“We just think about how to win the race but in the end the last call is up to Primož,” Vila told reporters at the finish. “If he doesn’t feel it, then of course he will not go for it. We plan everything like his back is ok, but he’s on the bike and he has the last call.”
Roglič won two stages in the opening week of the Vuelta, at Pico Villuercas and Cazorla, but his team’s failure to control O’Connor’s long-range effort on stage 6 left him with ground to make up, while his subdued showing on stage 9 to Granada raised fresh questions about his back injury. Any lingering doubts have surely been allayed by his showing here.
“Granada was the stage that worried me the most in the whole Vuelta, it was one of the stages that suited our team the least and I think we saved it very well in the end,” said Vila, who also downplayed the idea that Red Bull had erred in allowing O’Connor so much leeway. “I would give credit to Ben. When a rider is on a day like that, you just need to accept it. He was flying. To stop him, you probably needed a rider of the calibre of Primož pulling.”
Although O’Connor remained more than three minutes clear atop the overall standings, Vila hinted after stage 11 that he was now at least as concerned by the men directly behind Roglič. Mas has been the man best able to follow Roglič’s attacks on this Vuelta, after all, and the Spaniard was present and correct again here. In the overall standings, he lies third overall, 42 seconds behind Roglič.
“I think most of the people have the focus wrong. I think the focus is in the wrong place, but I cannot say more than that,” Vila said. “Let’s look backwards. If you look at who is there, who is always there, the focus has to be in another place…”
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