Mas passes the time trial against Roglic with a very good score and consolidates his leadership in La Vuelta
Test passed. Today it was decided more than half Lap in the absence of the last three stages in the 81st edition of the Spanish round in a 32.1 kilometer individual time trial between The Port of Santa María and Jerez de la Fronterascenario that the leader Enric Mas He faced with just over two minutes compared to the Austrian Felix Gally to the Slovenian Primoz Roglicsecond and third respectively.
A litmus test for the leader of the race, who had never been good at this discipline, against one of the best specialists in recent years, Roglic, but who had not looked very good in La Vuelta until this day. Oblivious to this battle, Stefan Kung. The Swiss, six-time time trial champion of his country and double European CRI champion, has set an impeccable time to end up achieving a great victory.
Enric Mas He appeared in the Bullring like a star. Wearing the leader’s red and saluting the line. The nerves were inside. He knew that he was at risk, that he could not fail and his team was content with him losing between 1′ and 1’25” with respect to Roglicwhich left a very open race among the best overall. In the end, the performance of Mallorcan Artà was much better than expected, since he only gave up 33 seconds compared to Roglic, which allows him to leave after the 18th stage with 1’37” over Roglic, which secures second position overall, while Felix Gallwho started the day 2nd, 2’06” behind the leader, is now 3rd, 3’01” behind Enric Mas.
It was not an easy time trial for Mas, once he left the bullring behind after passing through the Royal Gate. The profile of the stage was for specialists, with hardly any slopes and with some very delicate final curves before the long straight prior to the finish, which all the runners traced with care so as not to suffer a race.
Excellent performance from Mas in the last part
In the first time taken, located at kilometer 11 of the time trial, Further gave up 31 seconds with Roglica disadvantage that would increase in the second reference measurement, at kilometer 22 of the time trial, leaving this at 50 seconds. A priori, it seemed that Roglic He would end up spending a lot of time on Mas, but Enric defended himself like a wild boar in a scenario that is hostile to him, cutting time on Roglic whose last part seemed long.
And Mas would only give up 33 seconds with Roglic, marking the Movistar leader the 12th best time, with Primoz Roglic 4th of the day, 18 seconds behind Stefan Küng and with Xabier Mikel Azparren as the best Spanish, 10th.
A time trial that has a certain trick. It is true that Enric Mas has passed this exam with flying colors, but it is also true that he is only 1’37” ahead of the four-time winner of The Return, with a lot of hard terrain still ahead. Passion red.
