Oscar Onley might not have been able to outduel Enric Mas in their summit finish battle on Sunday in the Vuelta a España but the Netcompany Ineos rider had reasons to celebrate all the same.
Afflicted by illness earlier in the race, Onley's fast-improving condition saw the Scottish racer follow Mas closely to the line when the Vuelta leader launched his key move, some two kilometres from the summit of the mammoth 22-kilometre climb.
Mas then made a driving long acceleration on the finishing straight to emerge the clear victor ahead of Onley and strengthen his overall advantage into the bargain. At the same time, though, Onley's second place and the time gap of 12 seconds to the next finisher Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) helped him consolidate his fourth place on GC, and confirmed that his illness is behind him.
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After Saturday he had already felt much better, though this was a further step up. "Today was the first day I felt fully back to normal," Onley told Eurosport.
"It took longer than I was expecting, I actually felt good on Andorra, but then it hit me and now I'm back to normal."
The finale of the hardest day of climbing so far in the Vuelta, with more than 5,000 metres of elevation gain, was conditioned by Decathlon CMA CGM's determined and lengthy drive to pull back the break. However, things turned slightly awry for the French team when their leader Felix Gall was unable to either anticipate or follow the key move made by Mas (Movistar) and Onley.
"I think it was a bit different to the other days, Decathlon burned through their guys [quicker] than they'd have liked maybe, or that I was expecting, so by the time we turned right onto the last part of the climb we were all isolated," Onley explained to Eurosport.
"There were a lot of attacks, we were all looking at each other, and to be honest, a final like that, it's hard to create bigger time gaps, so it was a lot of stop-start, which kind of worked in my favour.
Onley admitted he made a mistake in the sprint, reflecting that in a drawn out sprint at a summit rather than a conventional mass dash for the line, it's normally the rider that opens up the moves that gets to finish first. But as he also pointed out, Mas had been superior to him all the way up the last part of the ascent so the result reflected the reality of the racing.
"Chapeau to him, he was obviously stronger, he was pulling in the last couple of ks and I just had to sit on his wheel. So of course I'd like to have won, but I think the stronger man won," he concluded.
The Briton reached the rest day in fourth overall, all the same, 2:20 down on Mas and with his GC options very much intact and the best young rider jersey on his shoulders. Given his position, climbing form and the four major summit finishes still to come in the two weeks remaining, after Sunday's performance, there's every reason for him to feel optimistic.
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