Cycling

Roglic on the verge of 4th Vuelta victory – Queen stage to Dunbar

Primoz Roglic

(Bild: APA/AFP/ANDER GILLENEA)

The Slovenian Primoz Roglic is on the verge of his fourth overall victory at the Vuelta a Espana. The queen stage on the penultimate day with the finish at Picón Blanco was won by Ireland's Eddie Dunbar, who had already won the eleventh stage.

In the eight-kilometer final climb of the 20th stage, unlike in previous days, Felix Gall was also at the front as the helper of overall runner-up Ben O'Connor. The East Tyrolean finished 39 seconds back in eleventh place. 

Roglic reached the finish after 172 km and almost 5,000 meters of climbing a few seconds behind Dunbar (Jayco) and third-placed Enric Mas (Movistar) in the overall classification. O'Connor finished seven seconds behind Mas in seventh place, defending his narrow lead over the Spaniard.

Fourth triumph
Roglic continues to lead O'Connor by around two minutes ahead of the final day, with only the individual time trial in Madrid (24.6 km) separating the Red Bull captain from his next triumph after 2019, 2020 and 2021. Several of Roglic's team-mates experienced a black day after their gala performance on Friday. Tyrolean Patrick Gamper, Dani Martinez and Nico Denz had to abandon the race weakened. Rumors of a rampant illness or food poisoning in the team remained unconfirmed at first. Spanish media also reported cases of illness among the support staff of the German-Austrian racing team.

If Roglic stays healthy, the 2021 Olympic champion clearly has the better cards in the battle against the clock against his classics chasers. If he wins the Tour as expected, he would realize the second Grand Tour triumph for Ralph Denk's racing team, which has been majority-owned by Red Bull for several months. Jai Hindley achieved the premiere at the Giro in 2022.

Roglic's next success would tie him with Roberto Hera's Vuelta record holder, the Spaniard having triumphed four times at the Tour in the early 2000s. With Roglic, the last Grand Tour of the year would also go to a Slovenian. Tadej Pogacar had won the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France. The last time all the grand tours of a year went to one nation was in 2018, when the Brits Chris Froome (Giro), Geraint Thomas (Tour) and Simon Yates (Vuelta) were successful.