Vuelta a España 2024 Debrief: Breaking Down Exactly Where/How Primož Roglič Won the Race

Breaking down what Primož Roglič's historic fourth Vuelta a España overall win tells us about modern Grand Tour racing & his prospects at future Tours de France

Sep 11, 2024

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After taking a few days to ponder Primož Roglič’s record-tying ride to win his fourth career Vuelta a España, which saw him win three stages, complete a historic Slovenian 2024 Grand Tour sweep and make it clear that his Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe team is the latest arrival in the sport’s coveted superteam tier.

Roglič’s ability to dominate explosive uphill finishes and take time against the clock allowed him to win with a relatively comfortable 2.5-minute margin over surprise second-place Ben O’Connor. Third-place Enric Mas and fourth-place Richard Carapaz both failed to get within three minutes of Roglič — despite displaying flashes of elite climbing ability at times throughout the race. While this win was impressive, especially considering the injuries Roglič recently sustained, the question looming over his winning ride is if it means he is strong enough to challenge Tadej Pogačar at the upcoming 2025 Tour de France.

Final GC Top Ten:
1) Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +0
2) Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +2’36
3) Enric Mas (Movistar) +3’13
4) Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) +4’02
5) Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) +5’49
6) David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) +6’32
7) Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +7’05
8) Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) +8’48
9) Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates) +10’04
10) Carlos Rodríguez (INEOS Grenadiers) +11’19

KOM Jersey Top Three
1) Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates)-78pts
2) Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates)-76pts
3) Pablo Castrillo (Equipo Kern Pharma)-43pts

Points (Green) Jersey Top Three
1) Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck)-226pts
2) Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) -123pts
3) Max Poole (dsm-firmenich PostNL)-118pts

White (Youth) Jersey Top Three
1) Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) +0
2) Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +1’16
3) Carlos Rodríguez (INEOS Grenadiers) +5’30

To help us digest the final result and attempt to understand what exactly happened and where mistakes/winning moves were made, I’ve isolated every stage where the top three won/lost time relative to each other and how much time they won(+) or lost(-).

Where Time Was Won or Lost

Stage 1 Time Trial
Primož Roglič +0
Enric Mas -22
Richard Carapaz -23
Ben O’Connor -35
Stage 4 Summit Finish
Primož Roglič +0
Enric Mas -10
Ben O’Connor -1’21
Richard Carapaz -1’39
Stage 6 Summit Finish
Ben O’Connor +0
Primož Roglič -6’47
Enric Mas -6’47
Richard Carapaz -6’47
Stage 8 Summit Finish
Primož Roglič +0
Enric Mas -4
Richard Carapaz -49
Ben O’Connor -56
Stage 9 Mountains
Richard Carapaz +0
Ben O’Connor -2’12
Primož Roglič -2’16
Enric Mas -2’16
Stage 11 Hills
Primož Roglič +0
Enric Mas +0
Richard Carapaz -15
Ben O’Connor -37
Stage 13 Summit Finish
Primož Roglič +0
Richard Carapaz -58
Enric Mas -58
Ben O’Connor -1’55
Stage 15 Summit Finish
Enric Mas +0
Richard Carapaz -9
Primož Roglič -20 (due to time penalty)
Ben O’Connor -38
Stage 16 Summit Finish
Enric Mas +0
Richard Carapaz +0
Primož Roglič +0
Ben O’Connor -58
Stage 19 Summit Finish
Primož Roglič +0
Enric Mas -1’00
Richard Carapaz -1’13
Ben O’Connor -1’59
Stage 20 Summit Finish
Enric Mas +0
Primož Roglič -9
Richard Carapaz -15
Ben O’Connor -24
Stage 21 Time Trial
Primož Roglič +0
Ben O’Connor -34
Enric Mas -1’02
Richard Carapaz -1’02

When the Top Four Won or Lost Time Relative to Primož Roglič:

Week 1 (Stages 1-9)
O’Connor +3’53
Mas -42

Week 2 (Stages 10-15)
Mas -1’41
O’Connor -2’50

Week 3 (Stages 16-21)
Mas -50
O’Connor -3’39

The above graph and week-by-week breakdown reflect the remarkable consistency in Primož Roglič’s ability to take throughout the three-week race, even after losing a massive chunk of time to Ben O’Connor on Stage 6. It also shows us just how important O’Connor’s presence in the breakaway on Stage 6 was since we can see that he had the biggest time losses out of the top four on eight out of the twelve stages where time changed hands.

The monotone nature of the course, which served up copy-and-paste versions of hilly days with a steep summit finish, gave Roglič a fairly no-stress path to consistently reeling in O’Connor and slowly distancing Enric Mas.

Course Type Where Time Was Won or Lost Relative to Roglič

When looking at the course types where the other major General Classification (GC) riders won/lost time relative to Primož Roglič, just like Tadej Pogačar at the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France, we see a clear picture of cross-terrain dominance, with his time gains spread between every type of course covered, with no other GC contender taking a single second on Roglič through any subset of the course.

This type of omni-dominance makes challenging Roglič’s lead particularly difficult since there is no type of course or stage on which any other contender has an advantage. Just like I said after the Giro and Tour, when a rider is the best on the climbs, time trials, sprints, crosswinds, and explosive hilly stages, there isn’t much surface area left to take advantage of.

Mountain Stages
O’Connor -50 (lost)
Mas -1’45 (lost)

Without Stage 6
Mas -1’45 (lost)
O’Connor -7’21 (lost)

Time Trials
O’Connor -1’09 (lost)
Mas -1’24 (lost)

Hilly Stages
Mas +0
O’Connor -37 (lost)

Time Bonuses
O’Connor +0
Mas -4 (lost)

Roglič/O’Connor Time Difference Per Stage Type
Mountains (9): 5.6 seconds per stage (Roglič)
Time Bonuses (5): 0 seconds per stage (Roglič)
Time Trial (2): 34.5 seconds per stage (Roglič)
Hills (1): 37-seconds per stage (Roglič)

Key Takeaways

1) It Is Clear That Winning Grand Tours Now Requires Cross-Terrain Excellence: With Primož Roglič taking time on his GC competition across every course type, which mirrors how his Slovenian Countryman Tadej Pogačar won 2024’s two other Grand Tours, it is now clear that the days of top riders gaining time in one discipline only to manage their losses in others are likely in the past.

In the modern era of pro cycling, the best rider in one discipline tends to be the best in the others. As the level has risen across the board, the focus on sustained power output over rider weight has become critical to surviving long climbs in the front group, which, in turn, makes more good time-trialing performances.
- Since riders like Roglič can time trial and climb at a world-class level, a solid performance against the clock has become table stakes for winning a Grand Tour. This has forced riders without a natural ability in time trials to do everything they can to work on their aerodynamic positions.
- On the flip side, this also means that time trialists who consistently lose time on big climbs, like Remco Evenepoel, will need to improve their climbing to the point where they can limit their losses to near-zero in the mountains.
  - To highlight just how much of a disadvantage other GC contenders are behind riders like Roglič, Enric Mas, who was considered one of, if not the, best climber in this Vuelta, would have needed to take nearly 1.5 minutes on Roglič through the mountain stages just to have a chance at winning the overall.
    - This is especially a tall task when we consider that through nine major mountain stages, he only took ‘real’ (non-time bonus or time-penalty) time on Roglič on a single occasion, and that was a paltry three seconds on Stage 20, after Roglič had sealed the overall title.

2) Even With His Incredible Climbing Performances, Primož Roglič Will Still Struggle to Seriously Challenge for the Overall Win at the Tour de France: Even with this overall win making Primož Roglič the co-record holder for most career Vuelta wins, move him into 11th of all-time for total Grand Tour overall victories, as well as put him ahead of Pogačar in the active riders Grand Tour win rankings (5 vs 4), the conversation almost immediately pivoted to how Roglič’s performance compared to the sport’s other GC stars, and if he is good enough to challenge for the Tour de France in 2025.

While I recognize and respect that Roglič, who was fighting through pain related to his hard crash at the recent Tour de France throughout this entire Vuelta, is one of the toughest riders in the sport, and, for lack of a better term, a born winner, when we open the hood and look at the raw numbers, it doesn’t paint a particularly encouraging picture.
- When Roglič stormed clear on Stage 19 of this Vuelta on Alto de Moncalvillo to all but seal his overall title, he produced one of the best climbing performances of his career. Over the near-24 minute effort, by my estimation, he produced nearly 6.9 watts (power) per kilograms (weight), and comes close to matching what Pogačar produced on the final climb of Stage 14 of the 2024 Tour de France.
  - Roglič Vuelta Stage 19 Alto de Moncalvillo:
    Time: 23:55
    Power: 6.83 w/kg (444 estimated watts)
    VAM: 1919 (vertical meters gained per hour)
  - Pogačar Stage 14 Tour de France Pla d'Adet
    Duration: 24:35
    Power: 6.9w/kg (443 estimated watts)
    VAM: 1837
- On its face, it would be easy to assume that this means Roglič is roughly equal to the sport’s top rider. However, when we drill down and look at the deeper content, Roglič produced those numbers after a relatively easy stage. In contrast, Pogačar did so after a very tough stage that went over the Col du Tourmalet.
- And, when we look at what Pogačar accomplished the following day, after riding at a near 6w/kg pace over the four climbs tackled before the final run up Plateau de Beille, Pogačar produced slightly more power (weighted and raw) than Roglič for nearly twice the duration.
  - Stage 15 Tour de France Plateau de Beille
    Duration: 39:50
    Power: 6.98w/kg (447 estimated watts)
    VAM: 1887

3) Ben O’Connor Laid Out the Roadmap for Combating Modern Racing’s GC Big Climb Lockstep: Top GC contenders now follow similar training and nutrition plans, allowing them to ride near their maximum potential and produce similar watts per kilo. This has created climbing parity between most top rivals, except for Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, which makes opening gaps on climbs, especially the steep pitches standard at the Vuelta, incredibly difficult.

For example, despite a brutal (if not repetitive) course at this Vuelta, Roglič, by far the best climber and strongest rider at this race, was only able to take less than two minutes on Enric Mas, and less than a minute on Ben O’Connor, through a course that served up a near-endless number of opportunities to take time.
However, Ben O’Connor, who never stood a chance to compete in this current watts per kilo lockstep on the numerous summit finishes (evidenced by the fact that he lost time to Roglič on nearly half of the stages in this Vuelta and would have finished in 9th, 9’23 back without his great escape), hacked this set rhythm by smartly getting up the road early in the race and taking a massive chunk of time, which gave him enough of a cushion to hold for a second place overall he would never have been able to pull off otherwise.
- Just like Sepp Kuss’ coup in last year’s Vuelta, the key to O’Connor’s success was getting into the early breakaway in the first week of the race before a clear GC hierarchy was set and the threat of his presence and the danger of the time he was taking wasn’t clear. In contrast, as we saw with Richard Carapaz’s failed long-range attack on Stage 18, by the time the third week rolls around, the focus on a few GC threats is too clear for them to make it into a breakaway.
  - As I outlined after Sunday’s final stage, at this point, it was clear that non-time trialists like Richard Carapaz and Enric Mas will struggle to win Grand Tours due to their built-in time losses in the time trials and inability to consistently outclimb riders more potent against the clock.
    - As a result, riders in this mold should approach Grand Tours assuming they are 2-3 minutes behind and aim to make up that time in the first week, even before they have technically lost it.

Review Every Vuelta Stage Update (become a premium member to receive full access to future daily stage breakdowns):
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6
Stage 7
Stage 8
Stage 9
Stage 10
Stage 11
Stage 12
Stage 13
Stage 14
Stage 15
Stage 16
Stage 17
Stage 18
Stage 19
Stage 20
Stage 21

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