Vuelta a España race leader Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) struck a defiant note despite his most serious time loss to date to arch-rival Primož Roglič on the lungburstingly-steep Ancares summit finish.
With some four kilometres to go on the final ascent, a searing series of steady accelerations by the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe squad, starting with Dani Martínez, Florian Lipowitz and Aleksandr Vlasov and culminating with Roglič himself, shattered an already fast-disintegrating front group.
Even as the Slovenian scythed down his rivals and went for it alone, O’Connor was already in deep trouble. But rather than over-react and try to stay with or draw close to Roglič, he simply opted to continue at a steady pace and hope for the best.
It proved to be the best tactic by far, and even saw O’Connor limit the speed of the time loss at certain points, with Spanish TV calculating he ceded just nine or 10 seconds in the final kilometre. But that was a drop in a hefty-sized pond by then, as Roglič had long since managed to drop the entire field, including his usually most tenacious pursuer Enric Mas (Movistar), and was clearly going on the rampage.
O’Connor finally crossed the line 1:55 down on Roglič, and his overall lead has plummetted to a slender 1:21. After the 10 seconds in Cordoba on stage 7, the 56 seconds - including time bonus - in Cazorla on stage 8 and the 37 seconds at Padron on stage 11, this was by far the biggest dent in his GC advantage to date and narrows the gap between himself and Roglič to its closest yet.
But as the Australian pointed out at the finish, while being far from an ideal result, “I’m still in red so at least that’s a good thing".
“My morale’s OK, I would have liked to have been better, but I can’t choose, so I’m still happy I’ve got this jersey, I’m still in an amazing moment in my career, even if it's not been easy today,” O’Connor said afterwards.
“I’m going to wake up tomorrow still leading this race and give it another crack. It wasn’t my best day, but I’m still in the same scenario. I’ve had, what, seven or eight days in the jersey, so I’ll just try and hold it for as long as I can. That’s going to be my story until I lose it.”
Isolated from his teammates, O’Connor did everything to handle it at his own pace. Even his usual climbing wingman Felix Gall moved ahead, and both Adam Yates (UAE Emirates) and Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease A Bike), neither on a great day, were able to move past him and ahead.
O'Connor's explanation for the time loss was simple. “I was pretty cooked, I wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. I was just trying to manage my effort. Like I said, I didn’t really have too much going on today.
“I guess the final kilometre was not the worst, but I just tried to keep my pace. I just tried to get from A to B as fast as I could.”
He did not, he said, expect to cede the jersey at Ancares, although he was realistic enough to admit that at this stage of the game, it was not out of the question. As the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale leader put it, “maybe, some day, but not today. I was going slow, but not that slow".
While stage 14 is another mountainous day, the main late challenge of the cat.1 Puerto de Leitareigos is long but not excessively difficult or steep and is followed by a fast descent to the finish at Vilablino. O’Connor’s next big challenge to his GC lead will likely come on stage 15 to Cuitu Negru, a monster 18km summit finish climb with an extremely hard finale.
For now, though, the Australian remains on top of the classification and if Ancares was by no means his best day, it’s as well to remember that at the even harder Sierra Nevada stage last Sunday, O’Connor not only failed to crack, he was even able to regain a little time on his rivals with a third place on the line.
Ancares might have been a major blow to O’Connor’s GC hopes of retaining red, then, but if one thing is clear in this ultra-unpredictable Vuelta a España, it’s that nothing can be taken for granted. And as the Australian himself put it, albeit more narrowly than ever, he's still in the lead.
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