La Vuelta

O’Connor leads by a wafer-thin margin – Gall back again

(Bild: AFP or Licensors)

Australian Ben O'Connor continues to ride in the leader's red jersey at the Vuelta. The Decathlon colleague of Austrian Felix Gall saved a five-second lead over the Slovenian Tour favorite Primoz Roglic on Tuesday on the 16th stage over 181.5 km from Luanco to the mountain arrival in Lagos de Covadonga.

Belgian rider Wout van Aert had to abandon after a heavy crash, with the stage going to Spaniard Marc Soler from Team Emirates. Gall lost further time.

The 29-year-old Van Aert slipped on a descent on a wet road and injured his right knee and arms. The three-time stage winner of this Vuelta tried to resume the race with a spare bike, but had to dismount again and sit in the team car with his bleeding knee. As a result, both the mountain and sprint jerseys changed hands. At the end of March, Van Aert had crashed at high speed during Quer durch Flandern, breaking his collarbone, sternum and several ribs.

Gall finished almost half an hour behind Soler in 85th place, just behind and at the same time as his compatriot Patrick Gamper (Red Bull Bora). On Sunday, Gall had lost a good 26 minutes on the leaders and dropped out of the top ten in the overall standings. Austria's athlete of the year 2023 dropped another four positions from 21st overall to 25th, 54:09 minutes behind O'Connor. Gamper is just under 3.5 hours back in 121st place.

Soler won in cold and wet weather 18 seconds ahead of Italian Filippo Zana (Team Jayco) and 23 seconds ahead of Brit Max Poole (DSM). Roglic finished eleventh 3:54 minutes back - in a group with Enric Mas (Movistar), the Spaniard in third place only 1:25 minutes behind O'Connor. The top eight are separated by just four minutes. O'Connor fought solo for his leader's jersey on the last climb, and did so successfully. As on Sunday, he no longer had the support of Gall.

An easier stage is on the program on Wednesday, O'Connor could still survive this day as the leader. Roglic is nevertheless heading for his fourth overall victory at the Tour of Spain after 2019, 2020 and 2021. The Olympic time trial champion from Tokyo 2021 and Giro winner 2023 will find the terrain favorable to him on Friday and Saturday with two mountain stages and a time trial on Sunday.