Vuelta a Espana | Primoz Roglic wins stage 8 in Cazorla as Ben O'Connor and João Almeida crack
Cycling
Stage 8 of the Vuelta a España saw an exciting GC fight for the stage win in the SIerra di Cazorla. Primoz Roglic attacked several times and won the stage against Enric Mas whilst Ben O'Connor cracked in the final kilometers and João Almeida lost minutes on a bad day.
A day where many expected to see a breakaway succeed, it led to a very fast start with an hour of racing at 50Km/h over rolling roads. It was difficult to create a breakaway but eventually it happened. Mauro Schmid, Oier Lazkano, Ion Izagirre, Harold Tejada, Sam Oomen, Luca Vergallito, Gijs Leemreize and Mathis Le Berre.
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It looked like the group would get away with the win easily until Israel - Premier Tech came to the front of the peloton. It didn't seem clear why the team has worked so much, but this time spent in the wind effectively removed several minutes from the gap and really made it hard for the front group to survive.
With 51 kilometers to go the action began in front with Mauro Schmid trying to stir things up, then Oier Lazkano doing the same... But with Israel's work in the front of the peloton they stopped attacking each and instead decided to work together to still have hopes of being able to do it.
On the penultimate hilltop we had Oier Lazkano, Harold Tejada and Luca Vergallito dropping the rest of the group, whilst the fight for positioning into the climb began. The peloton entered the climb at full speed, with a crash right at the base taking out Aleksandr Vlasov (but others affected). Primoz Roglic attacked right in the very steep ramps at the base, but it then calmed down. João Almeida had been dropped whilst Jefferson Alexander Cepeda kept the pace high for Richard Carapaz.
With 2.5 kilometers to go Roglic attacked, followed by Enric Mas, but Felix Gall brought it back for O'Connor. With 1.9 to go he went once again with Mas joining over whilst O'Connor was struggling. The duo caught the front of the race.
Mas took the front of the group in the technical finale but Roglic had the superior explosivity and sprinted for the stage win ahead of the Movistar rider. Mikel Landa was third on the day.
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| 1 | ROGLIČ Primož | Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe | 3:38:34 |
| 2 | MAS Enric | Movistar Team | ,, |
| 3 | LANDA Mikel | Soudal Quick-Step | 0:14 |
| 4 | TIBERI Antonio | Bahrain - Victorious | 0:17 |
| 5 | SKJELMOSE Mattias | Lidl - Trek | 0:21 |
| 6 | RODRÍGUEZ Carlos | INEOS Grenadiers | ,, |
| 7 | TEJADA Harold | Astana Qazaqstan Team | 0:24 |
| 8 | DUNBAR Eddie | Team Jayco AlUla | 0:26 |
| 9 | VAN EETVELT Lennert | Lotto Dstny | 0:29 |
| 10 | HAIG Jack | Bahrain - Victorious | ,, |
| 11 | GALL Felix | Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team | 0:34 |
| 12 | VERGALLITO Luca | Alpecin - Deceuninck | 0:36 |
| 13 | LIPOWITZ Florian | Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe | ,, |
| 14 | CARAPAZ Richard | EF Education - EasyPost | 0:39 |
| 15 | RODRÍGUEZ Cristián | Arkéa - B&B Hotels | ,, |
| 16 | BENNETT George | Israel - Premier Tech | ,, |
| 17 | O'CONNOR Ben | Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team | 0:46 |
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