"Vintage Roglic! He's shown Ben O'Connor that he's up for a fight" - Nathan van Hooydonck reacts to former teammate reclaiming GC momentum at 2024 Vuelta a Espana

The first week of racing hasn't yet concluded but the fight for the Red Jersey has well and truly sparked into life at the 2024 Vuelta a Espana. Although he may sit 2nd in the general classification, 3:49 down, Primoz Roglic reclaimed the momentum on stage 8 with a brilliant win.

"Vintage Roglic, on a finish like this: short, steep, explosive," reflected the Slovenian's former teammate, Nathan van Hooydonck in his post-stage analysis for Eurosport immediately following stage 8's exciting conclusion. "This finish is made for Primoz and he's shown Ben O'Connor that he's up for a fight."

"I didn't think he [O'Connor] was going to lose quite as much time as he did," added Van Hooydonck's co-pundit, Matt Stephens concernedly. "Roglic made multiple accelerations, like jabs to the solar plexus. He just took him apart, and Roglic used that climb, with his series of stabbing attacks. O'Connor could only follow a couple of times, before he started to slip back considerably, but Roglic - absolutely in his element."

The time advantage, by nearly four minutes, is still very much on the side of the Australian leader of Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team. Nevertheless, the mental advantage has seemingly switched back into Roglic's side after this early show of weakness from O'Connor. "We saw it in the Dauphine, in the really high mountains, he wasn't quite the rider that he's been in the past," Stephens explains. "But on the shorter, punchy climbs, there's nobody in this race that can match him. Enric Mas put him under a bit of pressure, very impressive, he looks to be back to very near his best."

"I think now that they've seen a real vulnerability in Ben O'Connor. We did see it when Roglic won his first stage and O'Connor was about two minutes behind, so we've already seen that maybe Ben isn't at his best on the climbs. But on the longer climbs, the less explosive climbs, he might be able to mitigate," the Eurosport experts conclude. "But once you sense blood in the water... I think Ben's going to be put under a lot of pressure tomorrow (stage 9), because they've sensed a weakness today, they're just going to want to go in for the kill again and take even more time. I'm expecting some more chunks of time to go."