Key Takeaways: Vuelta a España Stage 19

Breaking down how a scorching performance on a steep summit finish potentially settled the fight for the overall title

Primož Roglič answered any remaining questions about his ability to win the 2024 Vuelta a España when he followed the wheels of his Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe teammates as they destroyed the General Classification (GC) group on the lower slopes of Alto de Moncalvillo before storming clear to win the stage, take back the overall race lead and significantly add to his lead over his main GC rivals. Nearly a minute behind, David Gaudu and Mattias Skjelmose rounded out the stage podium after reeling in and dropping a fading Enric Mas. Further back, Richard Carapaz’s quest for the overall win took a hit as he lost time to Roglič and Mas. Meanwhile, although Ben O’Connor finally lost his overall lead, his podium chances are still alive due to his time buffer and time-trialing advantage over Mas and Carapaz.

Stage Top Five
1) Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +0
2) David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) +46
3) Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) +46
4) Enric Mas (Movistar) +50
5) Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) +57

Time Top Five GC Contenders Gained(+)/Lost(-) On Stage 15:
Primož Roglič +0
David Gaudu -50
Enric Mas -1’00
Richard Carapaz -1’13
Ben O’Connor -1’59

Current GC Top Five
1) Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +0
2) Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +1’54
3) Enric Mas (Movistar) +2’20
4) Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) +2’54
5) David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) +4’33

Stage 19 Race Notebook

BTP is seamlessly following every twist and turn of the 2024 Vuelta a España with the fantastic Tour Tracker app (iPhone/Android/Web)

9.2km-to-go: After a day of controlling and reeling in the small breakaway, Primož Roglič’s Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, massing at the front of the peloton, increases the pace to string out the peloton.

6.4km: This positioning and pace increase ensures that Red Bull-Bora GC rivals are shuffled back as Dani Martínez drives the pace on the front.

5.9km: When Red Bull-Bora’s Florian Lipowitz sits up, the chain between Roglič and the other GC contenders is broken, and Enric Mas, clearly feeling the pressure, begins looking around for someone else to take up the pace. With Martínez pushing 33kms/hr (20mph), letting any gaps open here is potentially deadly.

5.8km: This hesitation from Mas sees Martínez power clear with Vlasov and Roglič, while Richard Carapaz has to come to the front behind to take up the pace.

4.8km: After a kilometer of pacing from Vlasov, Roglič’s lead over the GC group is already up to 29 seconds as he takes off on his own.

3.8km: Behind, Decathlon-AG2R’s Valentin Paret-Peintre reels in attacks from David Gaudu and Carapaz while keeping Roglič’s gap at 27 seconds.

3.6km: With the gap increasing over 30 seconds, Enric Mas finally responds by attacking out of the chase group. This is technically in pursuit of Roglič, but in reality, it is most likely an attempt to drop O’Connor since he is quickly running out of room to move into second place.

3.1km-1.5km: Mas quickly gets within 21 seconds of Roglič before his progress stalls out and begins to reverse course. Behind, Carapaz gets to the front to chase as Mas builds on his lead over the chase group.

1.1km: Roglič rides clear with his incredibly high cadence as his lead goes out to 37 seconds. Behind, Ben O’Connor is finally dropped from the chase group.

150m: As Roglič pushes over the last steep pitch inside the final straight, we can see he is still tapping out a stunning pace and even goes into the big chainring, which suggests he is feeling particularly strong and looking to open his gap even further.

Finish: Roglič powers over the finish line to take his third stage win of this Vuelta and take the race lead.

Mas Chase Group 150m: Coming into the final straight, Mas is overtaken by a surging Gaudu and Mattias Skjelmose, who have taken back 30 seconds on Mas in just the last 3kms.

Mas Chase Group Finish: Gaudu and Skjelmose cross the line in 2nd and 3rd 46 seconds behind Roglič, while Mas comes in 50 seconds down and misses out on any time bonuses due to being passed in the final 150 meters.

Three Key Takeaways

1) Primož Roglič Dealt a Devastating Blow to His GC Rivals With One of the Best Performances of His Career: On a day that served up the perfect opportunity to take the race lead and, more importantly, pad his lead over his GC rivals, Roglič did his best to slam the door shut on the race for the eventual GC overall title by executing one of the best climbs of his career after a textbook leadout from his Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe team.

• The steady-state riding on the rolling terrain leading into an extremely steep final climb suited Roglič’s talents perfectly since it allowed him to rev his 20-minute uphill engine, which is only outdone by one or two other riders in the sport, up to maximum on the steep final slopes.

  • To gain nearly a minute on his biggest GC rival, Mas, and nearly two on the former race leader, O’Connor, Roglič uncorked one of the best climbing performances of his career.

    • After attempting to consider all factors, like the benefit of drafting, my calculations estimate that he produced 6.8 watts per kilogram (444 watts) for the climb, which took just under 24 minutes.

      • Putting this in context, that is roughly the same as Tadej Pogačar’s performance on the final climb of Stage 14 of the recent Tour de France (6.9 watts per kilogram for 24.5 minutes on Pla d'Adet).

        • However, while this is technically equal, it is important to remember that Pogačar produced those after much harder days of racing than today’s Vuelta stage, which, due to being relatively easy, was almost tailor-made for Roglič to produce a career-best climbing performance.

2) Roglič’s Strengths & The Specific of Tomorrow’s Stage Makes Him an Extremely Difficult Problem to Solve for His GC Rivals: After taking a substantial amount of time on every one of his GC rivals and significantly extending his lead over the ones closest to him (Mas, Carapaz and O’Connor), barring a crash, it will be difficult for anyone to take the red leader’s jersey off his back over the final two stages.

• While tomorrow’s Stage 20, with its 5,000 meters (16,500ft) of climbs, is a brutal test, the fact that it is so difficult means it will be even harder to overtake Roglič since, as we’ve seen today, he is the strongest climber at this race, and the riders closest to him seem to be fading.

  • And, on ultra-difficult days like Stage 20, there are far fewer weak points to exploit than on a medium mountain-to-rolling stage.

    • Even if teams like Movistar and EF Education-EasyPost want to put Roglič under pressure, their options are extremely limited. Outside of having their leaders personally attack early on the stage, setting a hard pace will have a limited effect since what is hard for their domestiques isn’t particularly difficult for Roglič.

      • And, even if Mas and Carapaz were to launch clear early in the stage, Roglič could sit in the wheels of his incredibly strong Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe team as they pace him back to his rivals (this is the benefit of having teammates that can physically match the power output of other team’s leaders).

• The narrative around Roglič is that he is vulnerable and susceptible to cracking after repeated attacks on overly difficult stages like tomorrow’s, but the actual evidence of true collapses, which would be required for Roglič to lose the time necessary (3+ minutes) for O’Connor, Mas, and Carapaz to hold him off in the final time trial, simply isn’t there.

  • The idea that Roglič is unreliable or a choker is absurd when we consider that in the last 13 major stage races (Grand Tours + Big 7 One-Weeks) he has finished, he has won 9 times and failed to win only two due to non-crash reasons (one of these was last year’s Vuelta, where team orders forced him to concede victory to Sepp Kuss), and, since 2020, rarely cracking and losing major time on mountain stages.

    • It is certainly true that Roglič can lack some of the final climbs sparks we saw today after difficult mountain stages, but this usually results in a slight wobble that costs him seconds, not minutes.

      • In fact, Roglič is one of the sport’s best at managing his effort and fighting to lose the minimum amount of time possible on bad days (See: the first week of the 2024 Tour de France).

3) The Hierarchy of the Rest of GC Top Five Appears to Be Shifting: As Roglič surged clear up the road for the stage win, the action behind revealed an interesting changing of the GC guard.

• If we look at the time each rider in the top five behind Roglič lost time today, an interesting trend of the rider furthest down, Gaudu, being the strongest, while the rider closest, O’Connor, is the weakest.

  • Current GC Placing & Time Lost:
    (1st) Primož Roglič +0
    (5th) David Gaudu -50
    (3rd) Enric Mas -1’00
    (4th) Richard Carapaz -1’13
    (2nd) Ben O’Connor -1’59

  • Outside of making the fight for the podium incredibly interesting, this likely further insulates Roglič since, if Mas lost ten seconds per kilometer to Gaudu over the final 3km of today’s stage, it raises the question of how exactly he will be able to drop Roglič and overtake him in the GC.

Stage 20 Preview

While the mountain terrain of La Rioja brought the GC standings into the clearest focus we’ve had since the race began in Lisbon, Stage 20’s brutal terrain means that there is still plenty of time left for contenders to gain and lose positions. With seven categorized climbs and 5,077m (16,754ft) of climbing spread over 172 kilometers, tomorrow’s stage is one of the season’s hardest tests and the most anticipated stage of this Vuelta.

• However, while this parcours through the Cantabrian mountains certainly demands respect, fans should keep their hopes from getting too high.

  • The fight for the breakaway will be intense, and the eventual composition is certainly to be star-studded and full of firepower, as riders like Sepp Kuss, Adam Yates, and Eddie Dunbar have nothing to gain by staying in the peloton or lose by being dropped from the breakaway.

    • However, while I expect plenty of action up front, back in the peloton, with the margins so tight among the four, top GC contenders will be incentivized to ride in the wheels of their pace-setting teams, hoping the hard pace softens the legs of their rivals until they attack on the final climb.

Prediction: Sepp Kuss makes a statement by winning the stage from a massive breakaway as Roglič follows the wheels of his top GC rivals as he protects his time buffer.