Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) showed his crash injuries from the Tour de France were well behind him as he rocketed to victory on stage 4 of the Vuelta a España on Tuesday.
Roglič prevailed atop the Pico Villuercas after 170.5 kilometres of racing, narrowly out-pacing Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny) who celebrated too soon and lost the sprint. João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) was third.
On a searingly hot day, the peloton waited to chase down the day's breakaway until the final 5 kilometres. Roglič was up front and ready for any attacks, but waited until the very last to make his move.
"It was tough - the heat, and for me now coming a bit back," Roglič said, adding that he is still struggling with his back injury.
"I felt definitely the back already after some hours. But I have to see, hopefully it doesn't get worse."
Roglič said nobody asked him to try for the stage win, he just felt he had to after his team controlled the race all day.
"It was not actually the main objective of today. When you see the guys riding hard in this heat, I'm happy to finish it off."
Roglič now leads the Vuelta by eight seconds over Almeida, with Enric Mas (Movistar) third at 32 seconds, but insists he's going to stick to his plan to "just to go day by day".
Defending champion Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) lost 28 seconds and trails in 13th overall as teammate Wout van Aert gave up the red leader's jersey.
How it Unfolded
It was a sweltering day for the first major mountain stage of the 2024 Vuelta a España, and it started with an aggressive battle to make the day's breakaway. A move came first from Joshua Tarling (Ineos Grenadiers), Lorenzo Germani (Groupama-FDJ), Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla), Luca Vergallito (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Simone Petilli (Intermarché-Wanty), with Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Eduardo Sepulveda (Lotto Dstny), Harold Martin Lopez (Astana) and Antonio Jesus Soto (Kern Pharma) chasing close behind.
Dylan Teuns (Israel Premier Tech) and Xabier Berasategi (Euskaltel-Euskadi) bridged across but all of the attacking groups came together on the first climb, the category 2 Puerto de Cabezabellosa (100.1km, average 4.9%) with only a small lead on the peloton.
The race came back together before the day's breakaway began to take shape ahead of the summit. At the front were Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto Dstny), Mikel Bizkarra (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Pablo Castrillo (Kern Pharma) and Filippo Zana (Jayco-AlUla).
Moniquet led over the summit with Zana and Bizkarra behind, and the five riders were allowed to go free by the peloton but were given a maximum lead of 3:30 before Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe began to bring the gap down because Armirail was threatening to take the race lead, having started the day in eighth place overall, 31 seconds behind leader Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike).
Moniquet took the maximum points on the category 1 Alto de Piornal after 54km of racing to move into the virtual lead of the mountains classification
The breakaway's lead melted in the heat of the valley, dropping under two minutes halfway into the stage, but began to go out again as the five leaders reached the third climb, the category 3 Puerto de Miravete (8km at 4.5%).
Armirail attacked 700 metres before the summit and the injection of pace brought their lead back out to three minutes.
However, Armirail attacked again, bringing Castrillo along for the ride, and the pair left their three companions well behind with 38km to go.
That lead began to vanish in the closing kilometres, however. At the intermediate sprint with 15.4km to go, Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) pipped race leader Van Aert to earn the maximum points, closing the gap to the Belgian in the green jersey competition to six points.
With 10km to go, the two leaders had just over a minute with much more climbing still to come.
A reduced bunch blasted onto the concrete section of the ascent with 5km to go just seconds behind the two leaders.
Roglič set the pace in the final 4km but Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) made his move on the steepest stretches but could not resist the pace set by the Slovenian.
Inside 3km to go, Gall lost touch, leaving Roglič alone with Enric Mas and Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny) at the front.
As the gradient eased, João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Matthew Riccitello (Israel-Premier Tech), Gall and Mikel Landa made it back to the leaders.
Landa launched first but was overtaken by Van Eetvelt, but Roglič showed his quality and snatched the win.
Results
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