Friday afternoon, 5pm. As most of Europe switched off their computers and their week’s work done, Primož Roglič was just getting started on his big task. It’d been in his intray for a fortnight, a daunting but still manageable effort entirely of his own doing required before he could sign off. He almost swotted up by completing the assignment at the start of the week, but the road and his act of foul play (illegally drafting behind cars will get punished, a memo from the UCI read) meant that the end of the week – stage 19 of the Vuelta a España – would be work time. He had a job to do, and he would do it well.
As a small lead group reached the bottom of Alto de Moncalvillo, yet another steep finishing climb – road builders in Spain really were barbaric, weren’t they? – Roglič’s Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe colleagues went to the front en-masse, four of them in support of the Slovenian who had a five second deficit to overturn race leader Ben O’Connor. Everyone expected him to do it, but few would have foreseen how cold, calculated, controlled and methodical it would be. Heck, it was even emotionless: nonchalantly swapping the pages on his head unit, no violent acceleration, and just one steady, constant pace. It was Team Sky-esque, one by one a teammate dropping off: first Florian Lipowitz, riding his own race in the battle to be the best young rider; then Dani Martínez, a huge pull for a kilometre that distanced the rest of the GC field; and finally Aleksandr Vlasov, a grimacing 600-metre turn before Roglič took over. That was at 4.9km to go, and already he had 34 seconds on O’Connor.
At the top, his advantage to the fallen leader was enormous: one minute and 49 seconds. Add in the 10 bonus seconds for winning the stage, his third of the race and 15th of his career, and he took just a second shy of two minutes out of the toppled Australian. For the first time since stage five, Roglič is back in red, and his lead is comfortable, convincing, and probably unassailable: 1:54. And it’ll no doubt increase, if not on Saturday, then definitely on Sunday’s time trial. This wasn’t Vintage Roglič as Vintage Roglič waits for the final 500 metres to attack; this was focused, efficient, prolific, dominating Roglič. It was masterful. He promised he’d deliver, and deliver he did.
After all the weirdness, perplexity and strangeness of this Vuelta – remember, the stage where O’Connor seized the lead started inside…