Vuelta a Espana - 21st stage: Roglic takes the overall victory, Küng the final time trial

Instead of a lap of honour and a mass finish in the capital, the organisers of the Vuelta a Espana designed a time trial stage at the end. The final 24.6 kilometres on the time trial bike through Madrid were therefore on the agenda. The day's victory ultimately went to Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), who set a best time of 26:28 minutes for the course. His hourly average was 55.755 km/h.

No other rider came close to this performance. For Küng, it was the first Grand Tour stage win of his long career. Second place went to Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), 31 seconds behind.

Ben O'Connor decides the battle for second place

Meanwhile, Roglic's overall victory was hardly up for debate in the run-up to the race. The Slovenian had a lead of 2:02 minutes before the final stage. However, the battle for the other places on the podium was exciting. There were only 58 seconds between Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Enric Mas (Movistar) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education EasyPost) in positions two to four.

However, the split times showed early on that O'Connor was the best time trialist of this trio on this day. With a gap of 1:05 minutes, the Australian finished tenth in the day's classification and remained second overall. Although Mas lost time to Carapaz, he also defended his place on the podium. The best German rider was Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who successfully rounded off his strong performance at this Tour of Spain with 14th place (+1:10 minutes). In the overall standings, Lipowitz finished the tour in seventh place (+7:05 minutes).

For Roglic, it was his fourth overall victory at the Vuelta a Espana after 2919, 2020 and 2021. The points classification went to Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), while Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) took the mountains classification. In the young rider classification, the white jersey went to Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek).

Vuelta a Espana 2024 - Results: the top 10 of stage 21

1. Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), 26:28 minutes
2. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), +0:31
3. Mattia Catteneo (Soudal-Quick Step), +0:42
4. Filippo Baroncini (UAE Team Emirates), +0:43
5. Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla), +0:46
6. Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek), 0:52
7. Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny), +0:54
8. Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), +1:02
9. Harry Sweeny (EF Education-EasyPost), +1:03
10. Bruno Amirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), +1:03

The overall standings of the Vuelta

1. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) 81:49:18
2. Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +2:36
3. Enric Mas (Movistar) +3:13
4. Richard Carapaz (EF Education EasyPost) +4:02
5. Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) +5:49
6. David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) +6:32
7. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +7:05
8. Mikel Landa (Soudal-Quick Step) +8:48
9. Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates) +10:04
10. Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) +11:19

How the 21st stage of the Vuelta a Espana 2024 went

The time trial started at the headquarters of the telecommunications group Telefonica in the Las Tablas district, with the finish at Plaza Emperador Carlos V. However, the course offered few challenges. Only after the start did it get a little twisty with several roundabouts and a 180-degree turn. The middle section is not very technical. Only at the end were there a few more bends. There were also hardly any metres in altitude to contend with. Overall, it was a course for strong rouleurs.

Tim Nabermann (dsm-firmenich PostNL) was the first rider to take to the track at 16:30. The first notable best time was set by Filippo Baroncini (UAE Team Emirates) with a time of 27:11 minutes. Specialists such as Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny, 27:22 minutes) and Edoardo Affini (Visma | Lease a Bike, 27:34 minutes) also came close to his time. Only Stefan Küng replaced Baroncini at the top with a time of 26:28 minutes.

And Küng was to keep this position until the end, as none of the following riders were able to match his time. Even Roglic was 13 seconds off the Swiss rider's best time at the first measuring point after 7.9 kilometres. At the second measuring point after 16.8 kilometres, Roglic was already 28 seconds behind. Küng defended this lead until the finish.