As it happened: Delight for Dunbar, red for Roglič on Vuelta a España stage 20

For all the reaction from Spain, keep an eye on Cyclingnews over the next few hours!

And now we can hear from the race leader, Primož Roglič

[On the illness that’s seemingly running through the Red Bull camp] “Not the best, but everybody has his own issues. Big respect, they put everything in what they had.. Luckily i’m quite fine, for the moment, so it was a nice day. We did a lot of work over these three weeks and in the end we just had to finish it off.”

[On whether the title is in the bag] “Definitely one day closer than yesterday, so the right direction, but tomorrow is a GC day so we have to finish it off.”

Roglic finishing in red, and keeping it. He lost a few seconds to Mas but not enough to matter. Record-equalling fourth Vuelta title loading for Madrid tomorrow evening.

Roglic accelerating further down the climb.

So going into tomorrow’s concluding time trial, Roglič has 2:02 on O’Connor and 2″11 on Mas, with Carapaz at 3:00 and Gaudu rounding out the top 5 at 4:48. Skjelmose maintains sixth place and the white jersey after a yo-yoing display.

Carlos Rodriguez lost more than five minutes today. He has dropped from seventh to 10th overall in what was the major movement in the GC. Lipowitz, Landa, and Sivakov all move up a place at the Spaniard’s expense, but the top six remains the same. 

And here’s the photo for the Dunbar household wall.

Let’s hear from the winner

“This one definitely feels a bt sweeter. I said after my stage win last week that it was never the way I expected to win a Grand Tour stage – I always imagined winning on top of a climb. 

“I just felt good in that second part today and just backed myself on that climb. I paced myself really well, I knew this climb from a few years ago and knew there were steep bits and parts where it levelled out, and that it was a bit different to what was shown on the profile. I rode the steep parts pretty hard and rode the flat bits pretty conservative to make sure I had enough left in the tank.”

As for whether this is the true lift-off for his career…

“I wouldn’t say that. I’ve had good times and I’ve had bad times, and it’s all part of the process. There’s gonna be more ups and more downs, that’s just the way life is – I have learned that…