Slovenian Primoz Roglic won the 4th round on Tuesdaye stage of the Tour of Spain and took the leader’s red jersey at the summit of Pico Villuercas (Extremadura), the first high altitude finish of the competition where he beat the Belgian Lennert Van Eetvelt.
The three-time winner of the Vuelta, who fell a month ago on the Tour de France, was the smartest in the last few hundred metres of the last climb of the day with slopes of more than 15% to win at the end of a perfectly managed stage with his teammates from Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe.
“It’s more of a team win than mine actually. That wasn’t really the main goal today. When you see these riders pedaling so fast in this heat, I’m happy I managed to impose myself at the top,” Roglic told Eurosport.
“It was hard, it was really steep. I’m just coming back, I still have back pain after several hours of effort, I hope it doesn’t get worse,” he added regarding his physical condition.
After the work of his teammates, who came to catch the last escapees Bruno Armirail and Pablo Castrillo, the 34-year-old Slovenian imposed his tempo in the high percentages.
If only Enric Mas and the young Belgian Lennert Van Eetvelt were able to hold his wheel, a group of seven riders reformed a few hundred meters from the finish with Félix Gall, Joao Almeida, Matthew Riccitello and Mikel Landa.
The latter was the first to launch his sprint, but he was caught by Van Eetvelt, winner of the UAE Tour at the start of the season, before the latter was overtaken on the line by Roglic.
At the end of this first mountain stage, Roglic has an eight-second lead over Joao Almeida and 32 seconds over Enric Mas. On the French side, Pavel Sivakov is eleventh and David Gaudu fifteenth.
Defending winner Sepp Kuss is thirteenth, 1 min 14 behind Roglic.
The race continues tomorrow in Andalusia with a much less demanding 177km stage between Fuente del Maestre and Seville where Kaden Groves, who extended his contract with Alpecin-Deceuninck for two seasons on Tuesday, is expected to battle it out again with Wout van Aert.