Primoz Roglic strikes twice at the first mountain finish of the Tour of Spain. The three-time overall winner from Slovenia wins the 4th stage and takes the lead in the overall classification.
Roglic succeeded on the summit of Pico Villuercas out of a seven-man lead group that had formed in the 14.6 km long and difficult final climb. After Lennert van Eetvelt launched the final attack, Roglic just managed to catch the young Belgian at the finish line. He was followed in 3rd to 7th place by Joao Almeida, Enric Mas, Felix Gall, Matthew Riccitello and Mikel Landa.
Back in red
With his 13th stage win in the Vuelta, Roglic returned to the red leader's jersey, which he last wore three years ago in his last of three overall victories. In 2022, the Olympic time trial champion from Tokyo had to abandon after a crash in stage 16, last year he completed the podium as the third rider from Jumbo-Visma behind Jonas Vingegaard and his then team-mate Sepp Kuss.
After changing teams and withdrawing from the Tour de France due to injury, Roglic could equal record winner Roberto Heras with a fourth Vuelta triumph in the coming weeks.
Küng and Schmid drop back
In the overall standings, the former ski jumper leads Almeida by eight seconds and Mas by 32 seconds after his fifth win of the season. Last year's winner Sepp Kuss from the USA is already 1:14 minutes behind in 13th place.
His team-mate Wout van Aert had to relinquish the leader's jersey after two days on Tuesday. Like the two Swiss starters Stefan Küng and Mauro Schmid, who managed to stay in the top 10 after the opening time trial in Lisbon, the Belgian lost a lot of time on the mountain, as expected. The rider from Thurgau is now in 64th place (8:38 minutes back), the rider from Zurich in 109th place (14:12).
The sprinters will have another chance in Wednesday's 5th stage before the terrain becomes very demanding in the following days.
