Vuelta a España: Primoz Roglic loses time on stage 17 but maintains overall lead into Madrid

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Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) is poised to win the red jersey after surviving a scare on the penultimate stage 17 of the Vuelta a España.

The Slovenian was put under intense pressure by Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers), who managed to distance him with an attack on the final climb. 

An intense pursuit between the two followed as Roglic tried desperately to save the Vuelta a Espana and Carapaz attempted to win it. The gap between the two at one point reached over 25 seconds, suggesting that Roglic’s advantage of 45 seconds on GC over Carapaz was under serious threat, but Roglic ultimately managed to dig deep enough to limit his losses to 21 seconds.

That means he maintains a 24-second lead going into tomorrow’s final stage in Madrid, all but sealing the overall victory. 

Further up the road, David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) proved himself the strongest from the day’s break to win the stage, having managed to break clear from everyone else, with Gino Mader (NTT) in second and Ion Izagirre (Astana) in third. 

The real action was happening behind in the peloton, however, as the GC riders traded blows in one final fight for the red jersey. 

Hugh Carthy (EF Pro Cycling) was the first to put Roglic under pressure on La Covatilla, forcing the Slovenian to chase after Sepp Kuss was unable to bridge the gap himself. With only Roglic, Carapaz, Enric Mas (Movistar), and Alexander Vlasov (Astana) still with him, Carthy made two more attacks, but it was Carapaz who landed the decisive blow, breaking clear by himself halfway up the climb. 

Roglic was assisted for a short time by his Jumbo-Visma teammate Lennard Hofstede, who had dropped back from the breakaway, and then Marc Soler, who had also dropped back in aid of his Movistar teammate, Enric Mas.

But once Carthy launched another attack from the group, this time managing to break clear in pursuit of Carapaz, Roglic was left to fend for himself.  

Desperate not to lose the Vuelta the same way he lost the Tour de France earlier this season, Roglic emptied himself, managing to drop Mas and Soler so that he crossed the line alone. It was just about enough to save the red jersey.

How it unfolded

On the last stage before arriving at the finish in Madrid on Sunday, everything was still to play for at the top of the general classification, with Hugh Carthy just 53 seconds down on Primoz Roglic, and Richard Carapaz even closer at 45 seconds.  

There were six categorised climbs in total, but the GC contenders were all expected to keep their powder dry until the fearsome finishing ascent of La Covatilla, given the relative ease of the other climbs. 

As the penultimate chance to claim a stage win, many non-GC riders were eager to get up the road, and a large group of over thirty riders formed at the start of the day.

The complete list of riders was: David De la Cruz, Rui Costa Sergio Henao, Ivo Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates), Lennard Hofstede Jumbo-Visma), Remi Cavagna (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Juan Pedro Lopez (Trek-Segafredo), Mark Donovan, Michael Storer, Jasha Sütterlin (Sunweb), Omar Fraile, Ion Izagirre (Astana), Pascal Ackermann, Michael Schwarzmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), Nick Schultz, Dion Smith (Mitchelton-Scott),Bruno Armirail, David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Julius Van den Berg (EF Pro Cycling), Alfred Wright (Bahrain-McLaren), Dorian Godon (AG2R La Mondiale), Stan Dewulf, Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto Soudal), Jose Herrada, Guillaume Martin, Victor Lafay (Cofidis), Stefan De Bod, Gino Mäder (NTT), Jorge Arcas, Imanol Erviti, Nelson Oliveira (Movistar), Aritz Bagües, Jonathan Lastra (Caja Rural), and Alex Molenaar (Burgos-BH).

De la Cruz was the highest placed rider on GC to make the group, in tenth the overall at 9:29, and he sensed an opportunity to rise up further. His teammates accompanying him in the break did much of the pace-setting and helped open an advantage of over 3-30 over the peloton.

Although not an immediate threat, Jumbo-Visma were concerned enough to control things at the front of the peloton. A big turn by Robert Gesink, beginning on the second climb of the day, the Alto de San Miguel de Valero, kept the gap steady at around 3-15, despite the best efforts of the break to keep the pace high.

With around 60km to go, Movistar took control of the peloton, briefly causing a split in the peloton with Carapaz and Dan Martin caught out. The peloton quickly regrouped, but the upping of the tempo saw the break’s advantage gradually fall, until it was down to two-and-a-half minutes by the start of the penultimate climb of the day, Alto de la Garganta. 

Once the gap was down to 1-30 halfway up that climb, Movistar fired Marc Soler up the road in an attack. After joining up with Erviti, who dropped back from the break, he joined the rest of the break on the descent, which by now had been reduced to about 20 riders.

Back in the peloton, Jumbo-Visma had taken over pace-setting duties from Movistar, and the tempo slowed as a result, meaning the stage win was very much in play for the breakaway.

On a short, uncategorised cobbled climb 18km from the finish, Donavan, Izagirre, and Mader broke clear from the rest of the break. They worked well together and reached the foot of La Covatilla with a lead of 40 seconds over the rest of the break, and almost four minutes over the peloton. 

Izagirre made a couple of accelerations as the gradient kicked upwards, and managed to drop both Mader and Donavan on his second attempt. He looked good for a stage victory at this point, but further down the mountain, David Gaudu had other ideas. The Frenchman dropped the rest of the breakaway and one-by-one caught Donavan, Mader and Izagirre, and soloed the last 4.3km of the climb to victory.