Primoz Roglic is poised to win his first Grand Tour after protecting his comfortable lead of the Vuelta a España on a rainy and mountainous penultimate stage.
Roglic had little trouble responding to the attacks by his rivals over the 190km (118-mile) ride with five categorised climbs from Arenas de San Pedro to a summit finish at Plataforma de los Gredos in the mountains west of Madrid.
As is customary at the three-week Grand Tours, riders respect the leader and do not attack on the 21st and final stage. So barring an accident or some unlikely mishap, Sunday’s arrival in Madrid will be a relaxed jaunt for Roglic and his yellow-clad Jumbo-Visma teammates to celebrate the title.
The Slovenian, who turned to cycling after giving up on his first sport of ski jumping, leads world champion Alejandro Valverde by 2min 33sec going into the final day.
Fellow Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, aged 20, confirmed that he is the surprise of the race by pulling off a long solo attack to win the stage in just over five hours, moving him into third place overall.