Triple champion Primoz Roglic edged Belgian youngster Lennert Van Eetvelt atop the Pico Villuercas to win Stage 4 of La Vuelta a Espana and take over the red jersey. In searing heat, the Slovenian veteran proved the strongest of a select seven-man group as defending champion Sepp Kuss conceded valuable time to his former team-mate. “I’m just really happy,” Roglic said.
Belgium’s Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny) raised his right hand to celebrate what would have been a maiden Grand Tour stage win before slapping his handlebars in frustration after having his pocket picked by the new race leader.
Coming round his adversary on the outside of the final bend, triple champion Primoz Roglic repaid his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe for all their hard work during a sweltering Stage 4 as he notched his 13th career stage win in the Vuelta – and with it, took over control of the red jersey.
With overnight leader Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) coming home over 16 minutes down and his American team-mate Sepp Kuss – the defending champion – crossing the line 28 seconds adrift, Roglic soared to the top of the general classification.
Slovenian veteran Roglic leads Portugal’s Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) by eight seconds in the new-look standings, with Spain’s Enric Mas (Movistar) in third at 32s.
Both Almeida and Mas were part of a select seven-man group which contested the win on the first summit finish of the 79th edition of the race.
Basque climber Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) fought back on during the final kilometre before launching the final sprint – only for Van Eetvelt to react the fastest with what looked to be a decisive kick to the line.
But the 23-year-old Belgian didn’t count on Roglic’s final surge, Van Eetvelt’s early celebration quickly morphing into a show of frustration as his rival came round the outside to cap a commanding day for Red Bull.
“It wasn’t necessarily the objective for today, but when you see the guys riding hard in this heat, I’m happy to finish it off,” said Roglic, who kept up his 100% record of winning at least one stage in all six of his Vuelta appearances to date.
“If they’d asked me, I probably wouldn’t have told them to go so hard. But I had no option,” the 34-year-old said, before admitting that he still feels pain from the shoulder injury that ruled him out of the Tour de France in July.
“It was tough. Hopefully things won’t get worse. The goal remains to take things day by day. I always say, you never know when the last [win is], so you have to enjoy it. I’m just really happy, especially today with how well the whole team was working.”
Red Bull were a constant presence on the front of the peloton once a five-man move established a gap after the first of four categorised climbs during the 170km stage through the barren and sparsely populated Extremadura region of central western Spain.
Frenchman Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Belgian Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto Dstny), Italy’s Filippo Zana (Jayco-AlUla) and Spanish duo Pablo Castrillo (Equipo Pharma Kern) and Mikel Bizkarra (Euskaltel-Euskadi) built up a maximum lead of around three minutes on the bunch in searing 40-degree temperatures as Red Bull kept the pressure up on the front of the pack in pursuit.
The remaining three escapees were swept up ahead of the intermediate sprint that preceded the final climb, with Australia’s Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) pipping Van Aert for third place. But this was enough for the Belgian to ensure a return to the green jersey once the inevitable occurred, and he relinquished his hold on the red jersey on the Pico Villuercas.
On the same climb where Romain Bardet took a memorable win in 2021, it was Austria’s Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) who came to the front once his team-mate Armirail had been poleaxed along with Castrillo when the race swung onto the steep concrete slabbed section with 5km remaining.
Landa used his momentum to swing past and up the road – prompting a response from Van Eetvelt, who dreamed of a maiden Grand Tour stage win. But Roglic had other ideas to deny the Belgian rookie and pay back his team-mates for paving the way for a 13th Vuelta career stage win.
“It would have been a really nice result – now it hurts a bit – but in a couple of days I’m sure I can be happy,” Van Eetvelt said. “I think I shouted what went through my mind,” he added with a smile.
Defending champion Kuss, meanwhile, rallied to 11th place, 28s down on his former team-mate Roglic after what he described as a “super tough” day in the saddle.
“The heat made it hard and also the entry to the climb was with a big group and so quite nervous,” Kuss said. “I didn’t have the best feeling, but I saw I only lost 20 to 30 seconds so I can be happy. It was pretty calm all day – I think everyone was saving a bit, because if you go over your limit in this heat, you pay for it.”
Wednesday’s Stage 5 reopens the door to the sprinters with a largely flat 177km ride into Andalusia that will no doubt pit green jersey favourites Van Aert and Groves together in a bunch sprint royale in Seville. Both the Australian and Belgian are locked on one win apiece in this Vuelta, with sprint opportunities few and far between in the remainder of the race.
