Bora DS believes Primoz Roglic doesn't need to attack anymore to win the Vuelta: "It's a moment to control our horses"

Riders are slowly approaching the final time trial in Madrid, yet we're still to solve many storylines of this Vuelta a Espana. Including the main one; Who is going to wear red on the final podium? Against all odds, Ben O'Connor still holds five seconds advantage over Primoz Roglic, who is confident in his time trial ability and thus doesn't need to make any big moves for the rest the race, his sports director Patxi Vila believes.

"I would say we are almost in the lead, so we don't really need to try to drop anyone. That's the most important thing. If someone wants to go, we need to try to follow, that's the most important thing at the moment," Vila told Cyclingnews. "At Lagos de Covadonga we did that - the idea was to follow, to be there and then see if someone has a bad day."

On the Tuesday's climb, Roglic seemed to struggle with accelerations, but nothing could be further from truth as the Slovenian comfortably controlled the situation. "The goal there was to ride to the top with Enric and the other big favorites and see if we could get a bit of a lead on O'Connor, without going too crazy. It was already a tough stage. I think this is a moment where we try to avoid big efforts and keep the pace as high as possible. I think it's a moment to control our horses and just ride to the finish with the best."

Confirming the words of other experts, Vila states that Mas is still the biggest opponent for Roglic. But first of all, the German team led by Roglic needs to take the leader's jersey from O'Connor and create a nice advantage coming into the final time trial to not repeat La Planche des Belles Files.

Vila points out Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe will be able to count on a fresh team in the third week - contrary to many other teams. "For various reasons, there was always someone among the GC riders who wanted to exert control, or wanted to carry out a certain action. We have taken an advantage of this situation and hopefully we will have a fresher team in the final week than some of the other contenders," according to Vila. "But it has still been a super tough Vuelta for everyone," he doesn't dare to draw on conclusions.