All of a sudden, a Vuelta a España has broken out. In the week or so since Remco Evenepoel seized the red jersey at Pico Jano, it was beginning to feel more like a coronation than a bike race. The final four kilometres of stage 14 to La Pandera showed that Primož Roglič is not yet resigned to vacating the throne.
For a dizzying few minutes, it appeared as though Evenepoel might even be divested of the red jersey in the Sierra Sur de Jaén, but he steadied himself to restrict Roglič’s gains to 51 seconds by the summit. In the overall standings, Evenepoel is still 1:49 clear of the Slovenian. Yet while the time conceded was within acceptable limits, the cost of the lost air of invincibility is harder to calculate.
In some respects, the finale to stage 14 of the Vuelta was a Rorschach test for the race as a whole. At the finish, at least, the QuickStep-AlphaVinyl and Jumbo-Visma camps professed to interpret the ink blot in radically different ways.
This might prove to be the turning point of the Vuelta, the first firm stride from Roglič towards an ineluctable fourth straight overall win. Or it might turn out to be the day Evenepoel won the Vuelta by limiting his losses so well in his moment of greatest distress. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder.
Evenepoel’s teammate Ilan Van Wilder is his near doppelganger on a bike, and when he stepped off it atop La Pandera, the Belgian did a nice line in his echoing his leader’s bullishness. Van Wilder had been setting the tempo in the red jersey group when Roglič attacked with 4km remaining, but while he expressed admiration for the three-time winner’s acceleration, he downplayed its impact on the direction of travel at this Vuelta.
“We don’t have to panic,” Van Wilder said. “I think Roglič also lost time the previous days. It can happen that you have one day a bit less legs, but it’s no big deal. Remco just did his own pace. Ok, he lost a bit of time, but it’s nothing to worry about.”
Even so, Evenepoel had looked unassailable since he surged into the red jersey at Pico Jano on stage 6, adding to his advantage over Roglič with further feats of strength at Les Praeres and in the Alicante time trial. Not even a crash on stage 12 could slow Evenepoel, who strung out the red jersey group at day’s end with a searing effort Peñas Blancas.
In that context, Evenepoel’s loss of momentum atop La Pandera felt like an abrupt shift in the dynamic of the Vuelta. Wilder, a son of Brussels,…
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