Primoz Roglic wins at Xorret del Catí as Evenepoel controls GC fight; Sepp Kuss takes on red jersey

The eighth stage of the Vuelta a Espana was one that ended with a small group sprint. Primoz Roglic beat Remco Evenepoel to win at Xorret del Catí, whilst Sepp Kuss has taken the red jersey.

The start of the stage proved hard to control and with dozens of riders trying to form a breakaway and no team to have the power to control fully, eventually 30 riders went up the road. In there only one rider who could threaten the red jersey Cristián Rodríguez, however plenty contenders for the stage win. Among those were Damiano Caruso, Romain Bardet and Rui Costa.

Groupama - FDJ made the effort to control the gap at least at 4 minutes, the time Rodríguez was behind race leader Lenny Martínez. Soon after however Jumbo-Visma began to help the chase, as they looked to make the race hard from early on, setting up their leaders for Xorret del Catí where differences were expected.

The fight for the stage win began with 113 kilometers to go, as one of Lotto Dstny's four breakaway riders Thomas de Gendt attacked solo. This saw other riders wanting to make moves in the breakaway and inside the final 70 kilometers the moves on the climbs exploded the group in pieces, whilst the gap steadily shrunk under Jumbo and Groupama's work.

Ultimately only four riders emerged from the many small ascents in front: Damiano Caruso, Oier Lazkano, Andreas Kron and Rui Costa. The quarter arrived at the flat section before the final ascent collaborating well but as teams fought for position behind the gap of minutes turned into just seconds.

Soudal - Quick-Step put on a big acceleration in the head of the peloton, the steep gradients saw the group shred to only a few riders, with Lenny Martínez unable to follow. Remco Evenepoel hit the front, but in a moment of slowing down Sepp Kuss attacked and got a gap.

Evenepoel then took the front of the GC group, which included Jumbo duo of Roglic and Vingegaard and UAE duo of Ayuso and Soler, alongside Enric Mas - and João Almeida who returned to the group later on. Evenepoel paced himself back to Kuss and kept going, with no-one having the legs to go through him. Although they didn't go through the summit connected, the eight riders arrived at the final kilometer together.

No attacks surged at any moment, Evenepoel kept the head of the group and launched his sprint first. Early on however, he gave too much slipstream to his rivals, although he had good legs he couldn't match Primoz Roglic when the Slovenian launched his sprint. Roglic took the stage win ahead of Evenepoel and Juan Ayuso with the group arriving mostly together.

Lenny Martínez defended himself but lost a few seconds and Sepp Kuss who arrived in the front group took over the race lead.