The Vuelta a España is many things, sometimes stubbornly traditional, sometimes bordering on the ridiculous but there is one characteristic which is a constant: It’s predictably unpredictable.
The peloton can go from a flat stage that ends in a chaotic bunch sprint to the next day hauling themselves up a goat track barely wide enough for cars. Then there are the doomed breakaways by the wildcard teams and the surprises à la Sepp Kuss . Any of these things can happen and, for some bizarre reason, quite often do.
After the opening weekend of this year’s Vuelta, Primož Roglič looked in control. He was best placed of the GC men in the opening time trial before winning the first summit finish and his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team were happy with the outlook. In fact, happy enough to consider letting a lesser rider take over the overall lead if the opportunity presented itself.
With media and podium duties reduced, the responsibility of controlling the race passed to someone else the tactic is a sound one but the decision requires a degree of care. Last year was an example of miscalculation, not that Sepp Kuss isn’t a good rider he just wasn’t considered to be ‘that’ good.
Therefore when Ben O’Connor slipped himself into the early break on stage 6 a few alarm bells ought to have been ringing in Roglič's ear. He might have been struggling on that first mountaintop finish, however fourth at the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia signifies a high degree of talent and to give him a lead of almost five minutes would be pretty dumb but somehow that was allowed to happen.
The excuse that Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) was meant to cover anything O’Connor did was playing with fire at best. Over a hundred places separate the two riders in the rankings and the Australian has way more experience so the potential for things to go wrong for Red Bull was there and it did.
The race tactics for everyone changed after the Yunquera result, not just for Roglic who has to pass from defending to attacking but also for all the other podium hopefuls who were at a minute or so and now are six minutes behind.
They are all aware that Ben O’Connor with his current advantage isn’t going to be easy to topple, instead, it will be a long drawn-out process of wearing him and his Decathlon team down. Every situation that lends itself to eliminating the race leader’s teammates is potentially going to be taken by Red Bull, Movistar and UAE Team Emirates who may have lost Joao Almeida to COVID-19 however going into the rest day they have Adam Yates back in the GC game.
Similar to O’Connor, the Yorkshire man hadn’t looked that great up until stage nine but an epic ride has moved him up the standings and suddenly Roglic has even more worries. His second stage win atop Cazorla on day eight would have inspired him, nearly a minute taken back from the race leader in just a few brutally steep kilometres but on longer climbs the next day Enric Mas was able to distance him. One day good, one day so so seems to be the way with a lot of the GC riders after this first part of the Vuelta.
While Mas and Mikel Landa have been consistent everyone else in the current top ten has had moments where they could have been expected to do better but that’s made the race all the more interesting as Roglic is no longer the focal point in terms of where his rivals find themselves.
The three-time champion still sits in second place at nearly four minutes from Ben O’Connor. However, it’s only a little over two minutes from there back to Carlos Rodriguez, the ever-aggressive Richard Carapaz (EF Education–EasyPost) is within a minute and Pavel Sivakov who becomes a valid backup for Yates is barely three minutes away. From looking to Mas and Landa Red Bull now have to consider what’s happening behind them and how to dethrone O’Connor.
Northern Spain is going to be cooler and the climbs are more irregular in their percentages which suits Roglic’s style better however Movistar will have renewed hopes for Enric Mas after his display at the weekend. Decathlon are fortunate to have Felix Gall alongside the red jersey but they may find themselves having to decide between his ambitions and O’Connor’s plight if things get complicated which they will now that Carapaz, Yates and Rodriguez are in the picture.
The second week is going to be very interesting outside of the overall battle too. Visma-Lease a Bike are going to be chasing stage wins now that GC Kuss isn’t happening. Stages ten and eleven look ideal for Wout van Aert to extend his lead in the Points competition but it won’t be easy as any breaks are likely to contain very strong riders with the same objective. The likes of Mattias Skjelmose, Lennert van Eetvelt or Michael Woods are ideal candidates to challenge him. Meanwhile, in the peloton, all the pressure will be on Decathlon Ag2r la Mondiale not to show any collective weakness that could put Ben O’Connor under more pressure.
He will have taken a lot of comfort from his showing on stage 9 into Granada, but he knows that one incident and the others will pounce.
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