Vuelta a España Stage 6: Tadej Pogačar Doesn’t Get It All His Own Way as Enric Mas Resists

Tadej Pogačar won his third stage of the Vuelta a España on stage 6 on Thursday, but he didn’t have it all his own way for once.

Enric Mas (Movistar) reeled in Pogačar after the Slovenian had made what looked to be his decisive attack and took Thursday’s stage to a two-up sprint.

Pogačar easily outkicked the Spaniard in the finale, but this was a rare fault from the GOAT.

He’d taken a significant gap over Mas before the Spaniard rallied and caught him back at the summit of the final climb of the day.

And that wasn’t all — Pogačar only narrowly avoided disaster when he veered off the road on the steep downhill that followed and had to push his bike across the grass to remount the tarmac.

Pogačar suggested in the winner’s interview he was caught out by a communication kerfuffle.

“I was really surprised on the top, Mas flew by me like a rocket,” Pogačar said at the finish. “I was not expecting it — I heard in the radio I was leading by 40 seconds over the chasers and there was no mention of Enric. So I was shocked.”

Pogačar did, however, praise Mas.

The 31-year-old Movistar leader dug deep in the finale as he and Pogačar pushed hard to prevent being caught by the chase group.

“I was just happy to have him in the final 10km into the headwind — I had no water,” Pogačar said.

“In the end I knew I could beat him in the sprint, but I appreciate that he committed all the way to the finish line.”

GC reshuffles in explosive final

Rising Belgian star Ramses Debruyne (Alpecin Premier Tech) won a sprint of the pursuing GC riders to finish third and vault from 12th to 8th overall.

Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike), Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), and Oscar Onley (Netcompany Ineos) didn’t make the chasing group in the explosive finale of the stage and lost 1:38 in what was a major dent to their podium ambitions.

#GCKuss may be in trouble.

Kuss, Skjelmose, and Onley are now more than 5 minutes back on Pogačar and two minutes back on Mas. The Movistar climber moved up to second place overall courtesy of his courageous resistance Wednesday.

Pogačar’s third win of La Vuelta leaves him 3:34 ahead of Mas in GC.

Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) drops a spot to third overall at 4:21.

Vuelta a España goes off-road

Stage 6 into Castello was a rude wake-up call after a more sedate stage on Wednesday.

This 178km day in the medium mountains amassed more than 3,000m of climbing across four categorized ascents.

The final climb to Puerto El Bartolo was the hardest of the four and peaked out just 20km from the line. The 9.4km Cat.1 averaged 7 percent grade but included close to 2km of unpaved roads averaging 11 percent. Several ramps kicked up to beyond 20 percent through the top half of the mixed-surface climb.

Mas resists King Pog – who also goes off-road

The race blew open when a 16-rider break formed after around 70km of racing.

Wout van Aert and Bahrain Victorious leaders Pello Bilbao and Santiago Buitrago made the move, meaning this was no soft TV attack.

Rising star Debruyne was also there. After starting the day 12th at 4:44 back, the Belgian stood to make a massive move up the general classification.

But Pogačar is Pogačar and UAE Emirates-XRG is UAE Emirates-XRG. They wanted the win for themselves.

Pogačar’s stormtroopers turned on the turbos in the final 30km and trimmed the gap before Pogačar forced the selection 4km from the summit of the steep final climb.

Onley was most tenacious of the small group who clung to Pogačar’s seated acceleration, but there was no hanging with Pog. Not intially, at least.

Mas chased solo to bridge a sizable gap, just ahead of the summit.

Pogačar pushed the limits in the narrow descent that followed.

Perhaps he was flustered, perhaps he was bonked, or perhaps he was greedy. Whatever the cause, he overcooked a shallow right hander, veered into the grass, and only narrowly kept it upright.

Kuss’ GC quest takes a hit

Kuss’ GC bid might have been crushed Thursday when Pogačar made his stage-winning acceleration.

The Eagle of Durango was nowhere to be seen while his rivals Onley, Mas, Roglič, Richard Carapaz, Felix Gall, and early attacker Debruyne led the chase.

#GCKuss may revert to #StageHunterKuss for the remainder of the race.

Vuelta a España stage 6 results