Vuelta: Roglic wins the 19th stage and takes the red jersey from O’Connor, Gaudu is still strong

2024-09-06 16:02:32

Ben O’Connor fell. After 14 days in the red, the Australian Decathlon-AG2R rider lost his place as leader of the Vuelta, to the advantage of the favorite Primoz Roglic.

The Slovenian, three-time winner of the event (2019, 2020 and 2021), crashed on the final ascent of Alto de Moncavillo, without taking and winning only his third stage in this Tour of Spain, with 46 seconds ahead of David Gaudu. With a 1′54″ lead with two stages remaining, Red Bull rider Bora Hansrgohe is on pole to win a fifth Grand Tour in his career.

This scenario is not too surprising as the gap continues to narrow between O’Connor and Roglic. From almost five minutes when the Australian took over, it was only five minutes at the beginning of this 19th stage. The power is clear for Roglic, supported in his work by colleagues Daniel Felipe Martinez and Alexander Vlasov. When these three started their attack, 5.7 km from the finish, none of their rivals were going.

Gaudu is far from the summit, but…

For Ben O’Connor, Enric Mas, Richard Carapaz and David Gaudu, it seems that the case was heard and the verdict was lost. Instead of throwing themselves into the pursuit of Roglic, they chose to kill for honor. The Frenchman, in this way, took his boat well and finished second, 46 seconds behind Roglic, beating Mas at the front of the line.

Still more than two minutes from the third Mas and 1′40′′ from the fourth Carapaz, Gaudu has thrown all the day set for a certainly explosive day on Saturday, with seven problems, before the rotation and a short deadline on which to do it. feed more people hope. To climb further in the general standings, Breton also hopes to benefit from the help from O’Connor: only in a hurry and in great pain on the final hill, the Australian lost two minutes and will try to save the jewel in last weekend. .