On Sunday, the Vuelta a Espana 2024 featured the extremely steep mountain finish at Cuitu Negru with ramps of up to 24 per cent. Primoz Roglic continued his race to catch up in the battle for the red jersey and took 38 seconds off the overall leader Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) on the course. However, there was a catch for Roglic.
Primoz Roglic changes bike before final climb at Vuelta a Espana 2024
Shortly before the start of the final climb, the three-time winner of the Tour of Spain had changed his bike. The Specialized bike on which Roglic tackled the stage finale was equipped with an extremely low gear ratio. This allowed the 34-year-old to ride at a very high cadence on the last climb of the day.
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However, on the way back to the peloton from the bike change, Roglic and his team-mates Roger Adria and Daniel Felipe Martinez took advantage of the slipstream of their own team car. As a result, the race jury imposed a time penalty of 20 seconds for all three drivers.
This has significant consequences for Roglic. Instead of 43 seconds behind, the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe captain is now 1:03 minutes behind going into the final week of the Vuelta a Espana 2024.
The overall standings of the Vuelta a Espana 2024 on the second rest day
- Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) 60:19:22
- Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +1:03
- Enric Mas (Movistar) +2:23
- Richard Carapaz (EF Education EasyPost) +2:44
- Mikel Landa (Soudal - Quick Step) +3:05
- Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +4:33
- David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) +4:39
- Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) +4:40
- Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) +4:51
- Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates) +5:12
There are plenty of opportunities to turn the tide in the third week of the Tour of Spain. On Tuesday, the next tough mountain finish awaits on the Lagos de Covadongaalso stage 19 on Alto de Moncalvillo and the 20th section on Picon Blanco are mountain finishes. And on the last day there is a Individual time trial over 24.6 kilometres in Madrid.
