– It’s nice to lead by so much, better than being five minutes behind. The queen’s stage (the competition’s toughest) comes tomorrow and it will be super hard, says the Slovenian Roglic to Eurosport.
Roglic, who won the Vuelta a España three years in a row in 2019-2021, was for a while in the race almost five minutes behind overall leader Ben O’Connor and had chased that down to five seconds before today’s stage – his third win of this year’s edition .
In the last heavy climb up to the finish, Roglic pushed on and extended the lead to the competitors who could not keep up on the narrow road to Alto de Moncavillo after 173.5 km.
Ben O’Connor disappointed
A tough mountain stage with seven climbs awaits on Saturday and the race concludes with an individual flat tempo race over 24.6 km in Madrid on Sunday. In both of these races, Roglic has an advantage over Ben O’Connor, who is now 1.54 behind in the overall and has had to move down to second place.
– I didn’t expect to be in such a bad mood at the end. In any case, I made an attempt and there are two important days left of the competition, says O’Connor, who must focus primarily on staying on the podium.