Enric Mas Leads the Vuelta Into the Final Week and Thursday Is a Thirty-Two Kilometre Time Trial
Mas inherited the red jersey when Pogacar crashed out on stage eight. No Spaniard has won the race since 2014.
Enric Mas goes into the last week of the Vuelta a Espana in red. Monday is the second rest day and racing resumes on Tuesday at Cortegana.
Sunday's stage fifteen from Palma del Rio to Cordoba was cut from 189.7 kilometres to 110.2 under the extreme temperatures protocol, with 40C forecast, and the start was put back to ten to three in the afternoon. The decision was taken jointly by the commissaires, the teams, the riders and race management. Wout van Aert won it from a five rider break, his second stage win in three days, ahead of Alessandro Romele and Thibau Nys.
Mas leads Felix Gall by a little over two minutes, with Primoz Roglic a few seconds further back in third and Richard Carapaz fourth at 4:24. Oscar Onley is fifth and leads the young rider classification. Van Aert leads the points on 267.
Mas took the jersey on stage eight, when Tadej Pogacar crashed out. No Spaniard has won the Vuelta since Alberto Contador in 2014.
The problem is Thursday. Stage eighteen is a 32 kilometre individual time trial from El Puerto de Santa Maria to Jerez de la Frontera, and Mas has never finished ahead of Roglic in a professional time trial. Two mountain stages follow, to Penas Blancas on the Friday and Collado del Alguacil on the Saturday, before Granada on 13 September.