The path to overall victory for Primož Roglič at this Vuelta a España grows narrower and steeper, like the road from Asturias’ cider capital of Nava towards the summit of Les Praeres. Given Remco Evenepoel’s sparkling form, the finale to stage 9 was always likely to be an exercise in damage limitation for Roglič, and so it proved.
The climb to Les Praeres was just under 4km long but its bitter gradients meant it was certain to pack a dizzying punch. Evenepoel, the man of the moment, began his forcing scarcely 500 metres into the climb, and while Roglič was among the few able to withstand his initial volley, he had to relent with a little over 3km remaining.
Asturias has been kind to Roglič in Vueltas past, including a year ago, when he crowned his third overall victory with a solo exhibition on the road to Lagos de Covadonga. On Sunday afternoon, Roglič’s was a deflating kind of solitude. He battled the gradient alone as younger men – not just Evenepoel, but also Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) and Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos) – bobbed away from him.
With a mile of hard road still to come, Roglič was already 40 seconds down on Evenepoel, but he stemmed the flow somewhat on the final ramps of Les Praeres. Roglič reached the summit within sight of Rodriguez and Enric Mas (Movistar), though he conceded 52 seconds to Evenepoel. As the Vuelta breaks for its second rest day, Roglič remains third overall, but his deficit on Evenepoel has now yawned out to 1:53.
Roglič has always been economical with his words, in victory and defeat, and he preferred not to speak at all here when approached by reporters at the summit of Les Praeres and again when he reached his Jumbo-Visma team bus in Nava. Maybe the road had already said enough.
“Primož is not 100 percent yet, but he is close and still in the fight,” Jumbo-Visma Directeur Sportif Grischa Niermann said. “We hoped that Primož could stay with Evenepoel, but no one could follow Remco. He is not the leader for nothing. This was also a fair climb. The best drove away from the rest.”
Roglič arrived at this Vuelta with question marks over his form after he suffered two broken vertebrae during his latest ill-starred expedition to the Tour de France, and the opening exchanges offered mixed answers. Victory at Laguardia on stage 4 briefly put Roglič in the red jersey, but he shipped over a minute to Evenepoel on the ascent to Pico Jano two days later.
On the first part of the race’s Asturian…
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