The box of surprises continues to shock, excite and amaze at the Vuelta a España, turning the race upside down and inside out in ways no one could have predicted. Ben O’Connor catapulting himself into a massive lead on stage six has given the rest of the peloton belief that the rulebook of Grand Tour racing wasn’t packed for this lap around Spain, and it’s now a free-for-all where riders whose ambitions looked over are now back in play, and whoever has momentum one day, loses it the next.
On stage nine, the race’s final day in the south of the country, the double ascent of the mightily steep Alto de Hazallanas preceded a fast downhill finish into Granada, and the expectation was that Primož Roglič would further eat into O’Connor’s near-four minute lead. But then, expectation isn’t having a great week, is it? No one expected O’Connor to be in red a third of the way through the race. And no one expected what played out on the roads of Sierra Nevada.
A big break of 25 riders was allowed to form with several big hitters who’ve had a relatively disappointing Vuelta so far, including Adam Yates. Not present, though, was Richard Carapaz. On the day’s first climb, with the breakaway some five minutes up the road, Carapaz was suffering from FOMO (fear of missing out), and so off he went, chasing the breakaway down with the help of EF Education-EasyPost teammates who dropped back to assist. In no time, the race’s lead group, with an advantage that looked very difficult to bring back, contained both Yates and Carapaz. Although the Briton was down in 27th, and the Ecuadorian in 18th, the echoes of stage six were not lost on anyone.
And then, on the first ascent of Hazallanas, Yates had his O’Connor moment, attacking solo 58km from the finish. His gap increased, went out a little bit more and then stabilised at around two minutes. While he pressed on towards what would become his second career Grand Tour stage victory, a quite remarkable stat given the breadth of his palmarès, Carapaz continued riding away from the peloton with the demeanour of someone frantically running to the shops before they closed.
Onto the second and final time up Hazallanas and the expected moment – Roglič darting out of the reduced peloton to crush O’Connor’s dreams – was getting closer. Any second now, fans mused. Or now. Or… now? But the expectation weighed heavy. Roglič’s attack didn’t come. Instead, that lesser-spotted event, an Enric Mas attack, is what eventuated. The Spaniard, three times a Vuelta podium finisher, made his move at the foot of the climb and kept extending it. By the top, he had almost a minute’s advantage over O’Connor and Roglič. To all the home fans who regularly criticise Mas’s hesitation and apparent paucity of daringness, this was for them. Mid-summer, five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, Mas was sending a primetime message out into the living rooms and bars of his compatriots. He does attack. As for O’Connor, he was steady, unflustered, unmoved. Unlike 24 hours earlier, he looked completely comfortable. Roglič was holding on.
But the drama and unpredictability wasn’t over. On the fast descent into Granada, Mas’s back wheel jumped into the air, and his bike bounced off the road, but somehow, he didn’t tumble down the mountainside. He had arrested a near-certain fall. The incident clearly and understandably unsettled the Mallorcan, however, and the lead that he had done so well in creating was wiped out by the O’Connor-led group that bore down on him fast. With Yates already the stage winner, jumping to seventh overall, and Carapaz climbing to third on GC, another lesser-spotted event occurred: Roglič did not outsprint his rivals for the remaining bonus seconds. O’Connor did.
As a result, the Australian increased his lead to Roglič by four seconds to 3:53, and momentum is back in his corner. Five new riders entered the top 10, the best young rider, Antonio Tiberi, failed to finish the stage, and Carapaz took the equally valiant Mas’s third spot by three seconds. UAE’s day started with the news of João Almeida’s abandonment due to Covid but ended it with stage winner Yates back in the game, just 58 seconds adrift of the podium. As the Vuelta goes for a rest day lie down, and everyone tries and makes sense of the new-look GC, we’re still none the wiser about who’s going to win this race.
