Tadej Poga\u010dar isn\u2019t waiting around to win the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.\u00a0The Slovenian superstar all-but won La Vuelta<\/em> on day 4 of the race on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Pogi attacked with 50km to go of Tuesday\u2019s explosive mountain stage and blazed like a red-suited rocket across the roof of Andorra to take a 3:21 lead on GC.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a margin that could be insurmountable.<\/p>\n But don\u2019t worry, the Vuelta ain\u2019t totally over at stage 4.<\/p>\n The race for the GC podium lit up on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Twenty-year-old Belgian phenom Jarno Widar (Lotto) won a sprint of six classification hopefuls for second on the stage.<\/p>\n Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM), Oscar Onley (Netcompany Ineos), and Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) were next to the line.<\/p>\n Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) was last in the sprint but did enough to move to second on GC, 3:21 behind Poga\u010dar. Enric Mas (Movistar) is third at 3:32.<\/p>\n The result leaves nine riders separated by less than two minutes, leaving the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a poised for a tight podium battle.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar rolled out his characteristic \u201cattack is the best form of defense\u201d strategy Tuesday.<\/p>\n He made his 50km attack when he found himself isolated on the second of four high-altitude climbs to prove he\u2019s good enough on his own.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew I didn\u2019t want to be isolated with all the GC rivals because they would all try against me,\u201d Poga\u010dar said of his winning move. \u201cI tried an attack on the climb and hoped I could survive to the finish; I did it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was pretty tough, but it was a beautiful day out there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar now heads into a series of hilly transitional stages looking likely to wear the red jersey wire-to-wire.<\/p>\n He\u2019s been untouchable since his split-second time trial win Saturday in Monaco.<\/p>\n And this 129th win of Poga\u010dar\u2019s pro career might stand out for the Slovenian GOAT.<\/p>\n He won his very first grand tour stage on these same roads at the 2019 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a and has won a further 36 since.<\/p>\n \u201cNever did I think then that I\u2019d be the rider I am now,\u201d Poga\u010dar said when asked about his first grand tour win, seven years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cI have such beautiful memories from the first time in Andorra. It\u2019s one of my favorite memories from my career.\u201d<\/p>\n And that\u2019s not all \u2014 Tuesday was the longest solo grand tour win of Poga\u010dar\u2019s career, some 7km longer than his solo raid across the Tourmalet this July at the Tour de France.<\/p>\n Stage 4 took the Vuelta\u2019s penchant for short and spicy stages and turned it up to 12.<\/p>\n The 105km stage across the roof of Andorra \u00a0started with a 23km climb and was a procession of ascents and descents from there.<\/p>\n The four categorized climbs on the course totaled more than 3,000m of vert, making for a seriously mean climbing per kilometer ratio.<\/p>\n Just to make things worse, more than 15km of the race was above the 2,000m altitude mark that can cause misery for aerobic performance.<\/p>\n For dozens of riders, this was a \u201chome\u201d stage. Andorra is one of the most popular home-away-from-homes for pros from across the world.<\/p>\n Ironically, Poga\u010dar lives in Monaco. That didn\u2019t stop him from making himself feel very comfortable on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Decathlon CMA CGM took it to the bunch from early in the stage Tuesday in the quest to mark out Gall as best-of-the-rest, or maybe even take it to Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n To start with, it worked.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar was left with only two teammates after the first 40km of racing, and the podium contenders were looking ragged.<\/p>\n But it seems like Pogi didn\u2019t like Decathlon\u2019s audacity.<\/p>\n He took the race into his own sweaty mitts.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar blasted from the remnants of the Decathlon mountain train at 50km to go on the Cat. 1 Collada de Beixalls and made the move that stitched himself firmly into the rojo<\/em> skinsuit.<\/p>\n Gall clung on to Poga\u010dar\u2019s wheel for a few hundred meters but the outcome was inevitable. The Austrian slid off the wheel to leave Poga\u010dar to crest the climb with a 90-second margin, less than 5km after his attack.<\/p>\n Gall dropped into a 17-rider group after he was gapped.<\/p>\n Decathlon wasn\u2019t deterred after Poga\u010dar rode away.<\/p>\n The team continued piling on in a large chase group before Gall attacked on the penultimate climb with Onley on his wheel.<\/p>\n Kuss, Rogli\u010d, and Mas made their way across ahead of the summit to set up a group of 5.<\/p>\n Widar, Richard Carapaz, Gregor Muhlberger and Mattias Skjelmose bridged across to them with 10km to go to set up a gallop over the short final climb and the final sprint for the line.<\/p>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/vuelta-a-espana\/vuelta-a-espana-stage-4-pogacar-crushes-rivals-50km-solo\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2292002434-scaled.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated August 25, 2026 11:41AM Tadej Poga\u010dar isn\u2019t waiting around to win the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.\u00a0The Slovenian superstar all-but won La Vuelta on day 4 of the race on Tuesday. Pogi attacked with 50km to go of Tuesday\u2019s explosive mountain stage and blazed like a red-suited rocket across the roof […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2113011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2113011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2113011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2113011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2113011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Full circle in Andorra for Poga\u010dar<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-1171540106.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Peloton hits home roads<\/h2>\n
Decathlon pokes the bear<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2291993896.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
The race for the GC podium begins<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2292000640.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a stage 4 results<\/h2>\n\n<\/div>\n