History is on Roglic's side heading into crucial Vuelta time trial: 'But I don't need to be afraid,' says Mas

Two weeks down, one week to go. The Vuelta a España is gradually nearing its conclusion, and the battle for the red jersey isn’t over yet—but Enric Mas has certainly shown that he’s very hard to beat. The Spaniard from Movistar currently holds a commanding lead. But there are still a number of challenging stages ahead. One of them, according to historical data, will most likely not go his way.

Mas already showed off his climbing prowess during Stage 6, when he caught up to Tadej Pogačar. When the Slovenian dropped out two days later, the Spaniard took over the red jersey. Since then, he hasn’t lost any time to his rivals and has even opened up a bigger gap whenever possible.

He now holds a lead of more than two minutes over his closest challengers, Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) and Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM). We’re seeing a Mas we’ve never really seen before.

"I might be at the peak of my athletic career right now," Mas said during the press conference on the rest day, which AS also attended.

"After such difficult months, it's fantastic to see myself like this. A lot of hard work has gone into all of this, and yes. The past week? To be honest, I’m not worried at all. Of course, anything can happen, but so far the team has been fantastic and has kept everything under control. I have confidence in myself and in them.”

The third week will begin with two flat stages, but the Movistar team leader has no intention of losing his red jersey by riding carelessly in those kinds of stages. He’s prepared for anything. “There are still two important stages before the time trial. There are more after the time trial as well, but there are still two mountain stages that will also work to our advantage. We’ve gained time in every mountain stage.”

That may be true, but everyone knows what Mas’s achilles’ heel is. The time trial on Stage 18 is the stage where the red jersey wearer is expected to lose time to his rivals, particularly Roglic, the 2021 Olympic time trial champion. A look back at history shows that the Slovenian has a strong track record.

Because since 2017, Roglic and Mas have raced in 22 time trials where they both lined up at the start. And how many times was Mas faster? That’s right—never. In time trials of about thirty kilometers, the distance of the stage against the clock in Stage 18, the gap was often one and a half minutes. A year ago, for example, in the Tour de France, around Caen: Roglic finished twelfth and gained 1.38 minutes on Mas.

Still, Mas is confident about the upcoming time trial. “We don’t need to be afraid of the time trial; it’s just one of the 21 stages of the race. Danger lurks in every stage. A tragedy could happen at any moment during the race, but the truth is that we shouldn’t dwell on that, because if we do, we won’t even be able to start the stage.”

With his lead and his dominant riding style, the red jersey wearer knows that his rivals will do everything they can to take him down. “I understand that the teams are going to race in a—let’s say—somewhat crazy way—in a good way. They’ll try to put us in a difficult position. We have the best team management, and the riders are confident and calm—and maybe we’ll even benefit from this.”

Mas knows that Gall and Roglic will be his most dangerous rivals. 'But besides those two, there are other riders we need to be very careful of. We can’t let our guard down for a single moment. Felix is a very good rider; he’s in excellent form, and we need to be on our guard. And Primož won the Vuelta not too long ago. He’s in third place, not 26th. You can never count him out. He’s performing at a very high level.”