Primoz Roglic: "It is always better to gain seconds than to lose them"

Primoz Roglic is on the hunt for a fourth Vuelta a Espana, and he made a serious bid for it on the slopes of Sierra Nevada yesterday where he put Remco Evenepoel under pressure.

"I didn't feel so good today. I only got through it towards the end. Especially at the beginning of the climb I didn't feel great, at the top it was already a lot better," the Slovenian said after the finish. Jumbo played all their cards in the run-up to the final climb, which saw a very steep and technical descent lead to the bottom, where the Dutch team swarmed the front and destroyed the peloton. Lacking Sepp Kuss and many of it's main climbers the move was short lived, but Roglic himself put in a dig that looked to isolate Evenepoel very early on.

“I wanted to win the stage, that was the goal. However, I didn't have the legs for that. It was a very tough climb," he said. He had understood it wouldn't be possible at that phase, and opted to wait for the final kilometers to attack him once again. He rode in the wheels of Fausto Masnada and Remco Evenepoel who looked to try and keep a pace as constant as possible all the way to the line, and in the final kilometers attacked the Belgian to take 11 seconds on him at the end.

"In the end I am happy with the result. It is always better to gain seconds than to lose them. I'm looking forward to the third week, but it's also nice that tomorrow is a rest day," he concluded. Roglic shed some seconds to Enric Mas, but overall the podium didn't change too much at what many called the queen stage. He kept his second place, but now 1:49 minutes behind Evenepoel, a gap which he will try to eliminate in the final week.