As proven over the last three weeks in Spain, Roglic is still more than capable of competing for Grand Tour wins as he picked up a record equalling 4th Red Jersey at the
Vuelta a Espana, a 5th Grand Tour in the Slovenian's career. Using his experience, Roglic stage by stage, clawed back time on
Ben O'Connor, who at one point had over five minutes' lead, timing his move into red on stage 19 to perfection.
“O'Connor had a great race since that sixth stage in Yunquera. It was quite tough, but we never lost our way of racing. Our objective was still the same and, I tell you the truth, we didn't change one millimetre," Vila says of Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe's plan at the 2024 Vuelta a Espana. "We would have raced the same if 0'Connor hadn't been ahead of us all those days.”
"Not working ourselves was the idea. It is true that O'Connor went a little longer than expected, but in the end we had everything in our favour. Stages 4 ( Pico Villuercas ) and 19 ( Moncalvillo ) are the two in which we used the team, and both ended in victory," Vila continues. "Many times you plan everything and then things happen to you (due to the virus that affected the team in the final days) and they end up exhausted as if they had thrown away the whole of La Vuelta, but Roger Adrià, on Picón Blanco, was able to make up for the shortcomings of the rest.”
“At the beginning of the race, the relationship was, I don't know if I should say difficult," concludes a delighted Vila. "But in the end we are so many new people that we all had to get up to date a bit to work together. We all contributed our grain of sand to this victory."