Primoz Roglic ‘should be worried’ – but can Remco Evenepoel survive three weeks to win red at La Vuelta?

Roglic cracked on the race’s first summit finish to come home 1’37” down on stage winner and Zwift convert Jay Vine (Alpecin-Deceuninck), and leaked 1’22” to Evenepoel in the hunt for the general classification.

Evenepoel leads the GC by 21 seconds from Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ), with Enric Mas (Movistar) in third at 28”. Roglic is fourth at 1’01”.

“He should be a little bit worried about Remco,” Blythe said about three-time champion Roglic.

“I think being on the first summit finish of this Grand Tour so far, and Remco just attacking once and riding everyone off his wheel, eventually pinging riders out the back… if that’s anything to go by, that one acceleration, I think Primoz should be worried.”

After being guided up the final Cat. 1 climb by team-mate Julian Alaphilippe, Evenepoel increased the tempo on the front of the remnants of the peloton with 8km remaining. Only three riders could keep pace: Roglic, Mas and Pavel Sivakov (Ineos Grenadiers).

A kilometre later and the quartet had been slashed in half, with only Mas able to hold on as Evenepoel turned the screw. Although the Belgian was unable to catch Vine, he shook up the red jersey battle as Roglic and a host of other fancied names came home adrift in gloomy Pico Jano.

While the Slovenian is still in the hunt, Dan Lloyd said he would have to attack due to Evenepoel’s handy time trial abilities – a discipline Olympic TT champion Roglic could usually rely on to claw back time. The pair, and the rest of the peloton, will race against the clock on Stage 10 over 30.9km.

“He [Roglic] gave as another reminder of what a true champion he is today,” said Lloyd.

“Lots of people if they don’t perform as they would have hoped to on a particular day, their heads can drop off and they lose huge chunks of time.

“And every time they [the cameras] went back to the group with Roglic, he knew they were all looking at him and he was quite happy to do it [work on the front]. ‘I’m on a bad day but I’m going to try and minimise my losses to Evenepoel and Mas.’

“And he did that pretty well. This is far from lost for him. But the great thing is that Evenepoel is a brilliant time trialer so if Roglic wants to win this race he’s going to have to hope that either: a) Evenepoel cracks, which he might do, or b) he’s going to have to attack him, which is going to be great.”

Can Evenepoel survive three weeks?

Evenepoel is yet to finish a Grand Tour after his debut at the Giro in 2021 unravelled in the final week, although he is now a different proposition after fully recovering from his horror crash at the 2020 Il Lombardia.

He has shown impressive form this season, having won Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the Tour of Norway and Clasica San Sebastian, and is now the man to beat in Spain after his brilliant ride in the rain.

Now Blythe has suggested the 22-year-old could be the next youngster to make their mark on a Grand Tour after the success of Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar at the Tour de France.

“Liege and La Vuelta were his two main targets of the year,” said Blythe.

“Liege he smashed to bits, won it by a country mile almost, the way that he did it, not seen in so many years.

“If he’s gone into Liege with that amount of preparation and done what he did there, and if he’s come into Vuelta with the same amount of preparation if not more, then it’s hard to just wait for him to have a bad day.

“I mean yes he probably will because he’s not done this race before, but how many times have we seen young riders, the likes of Pogacar, the likes of Vingegaard come into a Grand Tour, and we’ve never said that about them.”

Roglic’s greatest hope in stopping Evenepoel might be the strength of his team, with Jumbo boasting a fearsome squad and four riders who have already worn the red jersey at this year’s race.

“The other thing to consider though is not just Evenepoel but the team,” said Lloyd.

“If it was the other way round and Roglic had taken a minute on most of his rivals today you think ‘oh no’. As much as we love Roglic he’s got such a strong team around him that it’s difficult to see anybody else take it [red] off him.

“But with Evenepoel, it’s the first time ever that Quick-Step have had a team that’s almost entirely built around a general classification attempt at a Grand Tour.

“While they have got most of their climbers here, we saw today they went on the front they had [Remi] Cavagna there but when it came to 10-11 kilometres to go, Alaphilippe was done, [Ilan] van Wilder was done, [Louis] Vervaeke was done, and that’s why the group slowed right down, because Quick-Step had already run out of riders.

“It’s slightly different defending rather than to take time like their ambition was today, but it does mean I think other teams will be thinking, ‘actually, we can beat them, we can isolate Remco Evenepoel quite early on the biggest mountain stages’.

“I think that bodes well for this race.”

The Vuelta continues with an unusual day featuring a solitary climb – a Cat. 1 whopper – before a long descent to the finish.

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