Enric Mas has now racked up as many podium finishes in the Vuelta a España as Primoz Roglič has overall wins, but the Movistar team leader admitted it was not the result he was looking for.
He was able to distance Roglič on some climbs and mountain finishes but only finished third overall, 3:13 down on the Slovenian, and 37 seconds down on second placed Ben O’Connor (Decathlon-AG2R).
Mas started the Vuelta wanting to win.
“I don’t feel satisfied and that’s the truth,” Mas said.
“The team sacrificed itself in the race for me from beginning to end, not getting into breaks to fight for individual wins and I am very grateful to them for that.”
“I came close to some stage victories and if I had managed to beat Primoz in them I’d have come away with a better feeling.”
In the final time trial, Mas conserved his third place overall but failed to dislodge O’Connor despite ust a nine-second gap between the two prior to the last stage. Contrary to some expectations, O’Connor had a much better race against the clock than Mas in Madrid and as a result, the Australian’s final advantage over the Spaniard widened to 37 seconds.
“I’m feeling exhausted after several energy-sapping days,” Mas said, “Before the TT I had the feeling that I could do better, but I quickly realised in the opening kilometres that this wasn’t going to be my stage.”
“This was my worst day of the Vuelta, given my light weight and the time trial being so flat. But during the whole race, perhaps the day I suffered the most in this Vuelta was on Ancares” - where he lost a minute to Roglič - “and the one I most enjoyed was on the Lagos de Covadonga.”
That said, the sight of Mas dropping the entire field on the Hazallanas stage at the end of the first week, showed he was in stunning form.
Third may not have been the result he was looking for but it helped him regain some badly needed Grand Tour momentum after a very difficult Tour de France.
“We really don’t know what happened in the Tour, but I had lots of problems; I suffered on the flat, the climbs and I had two very bad first weeks,” Mas told Eurosport on Sunday.
“With patience and by staying calm, I managed to turn things around in the third week of the Tour and I started feeling much better. And this podium at the Vuelta is definitely linked to having improved so much in the last part of the Tour.”
Mas recognised that he had been more aggressive and attacked more than in other editions of the Vuelta. But as he also insisted, not being able to take a stage win or finish higher up on the podium meant that “We haven’t been able to take advantage of that.”
Having added a third place in the Vuelta to his second places of 2018, 2021 and 2022, the 29-year-old is hoping to go to the World Championships in Zurich and fight for the rainbow jersey on the hilly Swiss circuit.
He will then complete his season in the Italian Classics, where he claimed his most recent victory, the Giro dell’Emilia, back in October 2022.
