DISCUSSION - Vuelta a España Stage 6: Is Pogacar burning too many matches? Mas emerges as serious rival?

Tadej Pogacar claimed his second victory of the 2026 Vuelta a Espana in stage six, although the Slovenian was pushed much harder than expected by Enric Mas. The Spaniard managed to rejoin Pogacar on the final climb, but was unable to challenge him in the two-up sprint in Castellón.

The 177.5-kilometre stage featured around 3,000 metres of climbing and a decisive 3.1-kilometre gravel section on Puerto El Bartolo, averaging 10.8%. A 17-rider breakaway eventually formed after almost two hours of racing, with Wout van Aert, Pello Bilbao, Santiago Buitrago and Andreas Kron among the notable names.

UAE Team Emirates - XRG refused to give the attackers much freedom and kept the gap below two minutes. Ramses Debruyne emerged as the strongest rider from the break and attacked alone towards the gravel section, but Pogacar began to increase the pace with four kilometres remaining to the summit. Oscar Onley, Felix Gall, Richard Carapaz, Mas and Primoz Roglic initially followed, before Pogacar dropped them and caught Debruyne.

Pogacar appeared to be heading for another solo victory, but surprisingly faded towards the summit. Mas fought his way back and even passed the race leader shortly before the top to collect the mountain points. Pogacar tried to apply pressure in the descent, but ran off the road in a corner and subsequently allowed Mas to take responsibility at the front.

Gall, Roglic and Debruyne entered the final kilometres just over ten seconds behind, with Carapaz and Harold Tejada also still in contention. The chasing groups eventually joined forces but could not close the gap to Pogacar and Mas. Sepp Kuss and Onley were the main losers among the general classification contenders.

The stage victory was therefore decided in a sprint between the two leaders. Pogacar launched from the front and gave Mas no opportunity to come past, securing another Vuelta win. Behind them, Debruyne completed an impressive day in the breakaway by sprinting to third place.

Rúben SIlva of CyclingUpToDate followed every moment of the Vuelta a Espana first medium-mountain stage and was left satisfied after witnessing yet another day of aggressive, attacking racing.

Well, that was different wasn't it? A day Pogacar clearly wanted to win, as he was himself covering moves early in the day. UAE had an easy task doing what they do and setting up his win.

In regular circumstances there wouldn't have been a doubt, but for the first time in god knows how long, we've seen the World Champion struggle on a long climb.

This might have been because of his early effort - Oscar Onley also accelerated to follow him and cracked afterwards. The typical 'rampas inhumanas' climb at the Vuelta was one that required careful pacing, and some riders didn't do that.

Felix Gall did as we saw, and it appeared as if so did Enric Mas. Pogacar might've had a bad day as riders do, but he almost never has. The heat could've played a role, and I suspected Mas would do good today as the riders enter true heat territory.

I've often believed Mas was done after the injury and time off he had at the end of last year. The climbing level keeps on rising and this year his level, not just results, was not on par.

But I was wrong, the Spaniard put on the best climbing performance since his 2024 Vuelta, when he was the strongest heading into Granada.

But there he was alone in the descent and was caught by the Primoz Roglic group. This time around he was able to benefit from having caught Pogacar on the climb - another 200 meters and he would've dropped him.

Pogacar was always going to win this stage, but that is secondary to the actual action - although his risk taking on the descent looked completely unnecessary for a rider who is battling against himself.

Enric Mas moved up to a strong second place with some margin, Onley lost time that I believe was due to his wrongful tactic, whilst Jarno Widar has begun showing cracks that should deepen as the race progresses if he continues to aim for GC.

An interesting day when it comes to the fight for the podium.

Carlos Silva of CyclingUpToDate decided to analyse the Pogacar-Enric Mas incident at the end of the day, focusing primarily on the unnecessary risks taken by the Slovenian during today’s stage.

Did Tadej Pogacar show signs of weakness today? I don’t think so. I have heard a few comments suggesting otherwise, but let’s be fair: UAE Team Emirates did an impeccable job today. João Almeida and Pavel Sivakov took the lead first, Jay Vine followed and Pablo Torres completed the work, leaving Pogacar in such a strong position that the world champion did not even need to attack. He simply increased the pace and rode away.

Enric Mas was the rider who followed him, and the Slovenian said afterwards that he did not realise the Spaniard was so close behind. Whether that is true or not, we will never know. Was there a communication failure between Pogacar and the team car? That would be the only possible explanation, because I cannot believe Radio Vuelta was not providing the team cars with the time gaps between the different groups on the climb.

Mas appeared on the television broadcast several times, so he was hardly a ghost. After taking a moment to recover, Pogacar decided to pass Mas and ride away again. And he could have done exactly that.

The problem was that the Slovenian repeated what he had done two days earlier: he left his braking too late in the corners. Had he not suffered that huge scare and gone off the road, he would have continued taking enormous risks through the bends on the descent.

Mas is a more conservative descender and knows those roads. Before Pogacar went off the road, the Spaniard had already gestured to him to take it easy. Pogacar could have descended calmly, worked with Mas afterwards and still won the stage.

The Slovenian’s hunger for victories needs to be reconsidered, at least on technical descents where he has absolutely no reason to put himself under such pressure. If his goal is to win the Vuelta overall, he already holds a comfortable advantage and only needs to reach Madrid.

The World Championships are still to come. His season did not end today... but it could have ended very abruptly.

Juan Lopez of CiclismoAlDia was delighted to see a resurgent Enric Mas taking the fight to Tadej Pogacar, while making a subtle appeal for the Spaniard’s critics to start supporting him.

A historic day for Enric Mas, who silenced many of his critics on social media. Despite finishing on the La Vuelta podium four times, Mas was not included among the main favourites by the race organisers. He has now answered them as well.

It was spectacular to watch him fight his way back to Tadej Pogacar on El Bartolo and claim the bonus seconds. As expected, however, Pogacar took the victory in Castellón. The Slovenian backed his faster finish and beat Mas in the sprint, just as he did at Il Lombardia in 2022.

The Balearic rider was therefore unable to repeat his victory over Pogacar at the Giro dell’Emilia earlier that same year. Nevertheless, Mas is exactly where he belongs.

Felix Gall and Oscar Onley, meanwhile, have been disappointing. They arrived at La Vuelta as two of the main contenders for the final podium, but neither has shown his best form so far.

A special mention must go to the British rider from Netcompany INEOS, who simply cannot seem to get going.

The three opinions reach the same broad conclusion from different angles: Enric Mas was the big winner of the day, even though Tadej Pogacar took the stage victory.

Rúben Silva saw genuine signs of weakness from Pogacar on the climb, while Carlos Silva interpreted the same moment differently. For him, the Slovenian remained fully in control after impeccable work from UAE Team Emirates - XRG. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Pogacar was not at his dominant best on El Bartolo, but he still had enough strength to respond, distance Mas again and win the sprint in Castellón.

What cannot be disputed is the quality of Mas’ performance. He paced the climb intelligently, fought his way back to Pogacar and briefly moved ahead of the world champion at the summit. As Juan Lopez argued, this was the strongest possible response to those who had dismissed his podium chances before the race.

The more worrying issue was Pogacar’s approach to the descent. With the stage and overall classification already under control, there was little to gain from taking such risks. His excursion off the road did not cost him this time, but it should serve as a warning. Pogacar proved once again that his desire to win has no off switch. On technical descents, however, knowing when to ease off could be just as important as knowing when to attack.

Mas leaves the stage with renewed status as Pogacar’s main challenger, while Pogacar leaves with another victory, and a reminder that the greatest threat to his Vuelta may sometimes be himself.