Who would have thought it? Simply two days after it appeared that Primož Roglič (Pink Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) had moved into pole place to safe one more Vuelta a España general victory, the GC battle has abruptly yawned extensive open, and the triple Vuelta winner will seemingly have a struggle on his arms of main proportions in his bid to take a fourth.
The Vuelta is at all times good at producing sudden developments – how many individuals would actually have had Sepp Kuss as the general winner earlier than 2023, for instance? However the occasions of stage 6 of the 2024 race had been sudden in anybody’s e book. A gutsy, long-distance break by Ben O’Connor – beforehand two minutes down on GC and attempting for a stage win at the very least initially – has now put the Australian into the general lead as nicely. And by a substantial, probably race-winning, margin besides.
The comparisons with O’Connor‘s state of affairs and Kuss getting in a seemingly inoffensive first-week break in 2023 after which happening to win outright are legitimate, after all. However given the precedent of 2023 – and presumably groups being greater than conscious of such dangers since then – certainly makes it tougher to understand {that a} related situation ought to develop once more, and with a rider with a significantly better GC monitor file besides.
However that is the state of affairs: after dropping a jaw-dropping complete of six and a half minutes on O’Connor in a single stage, the Slovenian has now dropped to second, 4:51 again on the brand new race chief. By any requirements, the rise of O’Connor into the highest spot constitutes a troubling, and probably very main, setback for Roglič.
Pink Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Sports activities Director Patxi Vila admitted instantly that whereas that they had at all times deliberate to maintain the Australian below management within the day-long break utilizing Roglič’s teammate Florian Lipowitz. However as Vila informed Spanish tv, “Issues bought out of hand”.
“Issues didn’t play out as we needed. The beginning was actually fast-moving and the break of the day [containing O’Connor, Lipowitz and 11 others) was a really strong one. Lipo was in there, and we thought he would have no problem staying with Ben and we’d get another option on GC,” Vila said.
Lipowitz did his best and thanks to his third place on the stage, and moved up to fourth overall. But crucially, when O’Connor attacked, Lipowitz could not follow and suddenly, as O’Connor stepped up the pressure to unexpectedly high levels, Red Bull’s seemingly unbreakable superiority with their main GC man, Roglič, began to fall apart at the seams.
“What O’Connor did was incredible, I’ve rarely seen that,” Vila said, explaining that he had underestimated the Australian enormously. “Going up the last climb he just didn’t lose any time. I would never have expected that it’s a real surprise.
“The idea was that Lipo’s presence in the break would get the other teams working, because they wouldn’t like us getting another rider up there on GC. But then with O’Connor being so much stronger than I thought, it all got out of hand.”
Plan did not work
Lipowitz admitted that initially the Red Bull plan had been to let a move go without any of their riders in it, with Roglič already stating on Wednesday that he’d be happy to ‘loan’ the lead to a non-GC threat.
“But then there were a lot of moves on the climb so I followed there and in the end we messed things up a bit in a break,” the German explained.
“Nobody was working, there were a lot of attacks and sadly I wasn’t in Ben’s move. I had super-good legs and I’m happy with my shape. But I could have done more.
“In the end, we just missed out on Ben’s move and everybody was looking each other. He just went.”
Roglič himself paused briefly to talk to reporters, but after such a difficult day for his team, he was not in the most communicative of moods.
“We can’t control everything and I said yesterday [Wednesday] that the plan was to let a break go,” he mentioned. “Florian did a pleasant job, it was difficult with slippery descents so I might be blissful about that.”
Nevertheless, the million-dollar query of how harmful a rider like Ben O’Connor may very well be GC-wise drew a good shorter response. “We’ll see on the finish of a race,” Roglič mentioned, then rapidly threaded his method by means of the tangle of riders on the end line heading away to the staff bus.
As for the place Pink Bull go from right here with 15 phases nonetheless remaining, Vila was adamant that each one was not misplaced However he admitted that beating the Australian can be a sporting down course of, relatively than hoping to see O’Connor collapse all of a sudden.
“Little by little, little by little, we’ll must do what we will. There’s an extended approach to go, the nice factor is the staff is robust in order that’s one other plus.
“As we speak was a nasty day, a state of affairs we couldn’t management. However we hope we will flip it round.”
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