These 7 riders are ready to capitalise on Pogačar’s withdrawal from the Vuelta a España

Tadej Pogacar’s withdrawal from the Vuelta a España is unfortunate, but—to put it bluntly—it also opens the door for all the other general classification contenders in the race. Now that the expected winner is out of the race, the battle for the red jersey is suddenly wide open. Based on how the field fared in the first week and knowing what’s still to come, seven riders still seem to have a real shot at the overall victory in Granada.

Following Pogacar’s withdrawal, the 31-year-old Spaniard is in pole position, and the climber has only himself to thank for that. The team leader dared to attack when Pogacar once again appeared to be breaking away solo in Stage 6. Mas caught up with the Slovenian and in doing so left many rivals three-quarters of a minute or more behind.

Mas is by no means a frequent winner, but his track record in the Vuelta is impressive. He’s finished second three times and third once, won two young rider jerseys, and has already claimed one stage victory. An overall victory in the Vuelta wouldn’t be out of the question, since during the three weeks of the Vuelta we always see a side of Mas that we rarely see the rest of the year.

After taking over the red jersey, the experienced Mas himself seemed aware of his status as a talented team leader—albeit one without many victories. Will he defend the red jersey convincingly? That remains to be seen. “A new race is starting now, and I hope we’re ready for it. Sunday (Stage 9, ed.) will be a very tough stage, just like Stage 20. We have to try to enjoy this and defend the red jersey.”

In second place in the standings is a man we might have already written off a bit. The 36-year-old Primož Roglič has for some time been a shadow of the rider who dominated stage races for years. He is the winner of the 2023 Giro d’Italia and a four-time (!) Vuelta champion. He has already finished on the podium in all three Grand Tours and won virtually every one-week WorldTour race.

At Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, however, Roglic slowly slipped down the pecking order, and when it became known that he had been hit by a car during training just before the Vuelta, his chances of a strong finish were considered slim. Roglic certainly wasn’t among the best riders behind Pogacar in the first week of the Vuelta, but he didn’t lose a great deal of time either.

And so he’s suddenly second in the standings, just one minute behind Mas and still with a chance to improve his position. “Primoz is someone who has already won the Vuelta and knows what it takes to win it. But in and of itself, not much is changing. We’re not going to start dreaming just because Pogacar dropped out, even though the situation is different,” team manager Sven Vanthourenhout told HLN.

If someone had said a year ago that Felix Gall would be in contention for the overall victory in a Grand Tour, we would have called them crazy. But the 28-year-old Austrian is right back in the mix, after proving himself the “best of the rest” in the Giro d’Italia earlier this year, behind a dominant Jonas Vingegaard. The start of the Vuelta was rough, but Gall seems to be improving quickly.

The climber has the advantage of having an excellent climbing team in Decathlon CMA CGM, which allows him to put pressure on Mas. He already did that in Stage 7, where he promptly made up 10 seconds on the Spaniard. That was necessary, too, because Gall had already lost more than a minute during the opening weekend and, had it not been for that slow start, he might have already taken the red jersey.

The true climber will have to push hard now, but he’ll still have every chance to do so. Stage 18, an individual time trial covering no less than 32.1 kilometers, could spell his doom, as Gall doesn’t seem to make much headway on a time trial bike. He’ll have to seize the lead before then, and if he still has the legs from the Giro, that’s actually a realistic scenario.

In addition to Roglic, there is another rider in the top five who has already won the Vuelta a España. In 2023, Sepp Kuss was the overall winner, partly because Vingegaard and Roglic at Jumbo-Visma let him have the victory. However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that, after spending two Grand Tours in that year riding in support of others, Kuss was finally able to take the lead himself.

As it happens, 2026 is the year in which Kuss will ride all three Grand Tours for the second time in his career. He helped Vingegaard secure the overall victory in the Giro d'Italia and played the same role in the Tour de France. When Vingegaard dropped out, Kuss set his sights on stage wins in the final week and came very close to achieving them.

Like Gall, Kuss is certainly not a top favorite, given that there’s still a very long time trial ahead. But just like Gall, Kuss can be considered capable of daring to attack and giving it his all for the best possible result. The American isn’t one to sit back and has truly taken on the leader’s role at Visma | Lease a Bike. Can he find his best form? Or is he running a bit low on energy after already 7 weeks (!) of Grand Tours?

If you’d predicted before the Vuelta that Pogacar would drop out, we would certainly have counted Oscar Onley among the top favorites to win the overall title. Last year’s fourth-place finisher in the Tour de France (then riding for Picnic PostNL) found his top form in the Tour of Burgos after a disastrous year plagued by injuries and illness, and headed into the Vuelta full of confidence.

However, things didn’t go smoothly in the first few days. Onley had a terrible performance in the opening time trial, and perhaps he was already feeling a bit under the weather then. Onley admitted that his health had been playing tricks on him in the first few days and that, as a result, he didn’t climb as well as everyone might have expected.

However, nothing is lost yet—especially not now that Pogacar is out of the race. Onley is only a little over 2 minutes behind and may have already had his share of bad luck. He was also involved in Pogi’s crash, but by his own account, he was “very lucky.” “That was scary; we were going really fast. It’s going to be a different, more open race now. My goals haven’t changed, just like they haven’t for my competitors. There might be more opportunities for the attackers now.”

Carapaz must be so glad that he kept hanging on, kept pushing forward, and kept minimizing his losses throughout those days in the first week. Like many other riders in the Tour de France, Carapaz was searching for his best form, but it never quite materialized. Still, he kept fighting, and as a result, he’s suddenly a dangerous dark horse in the overall standings.

Carapaz won the Giro d'Italia in 2019 and came very close to winning the Vuelta in 2020. Roglic was just a bit better back then, and it’s quite possible that these two experienced and savvy veterans will rise to the top in the second and, especially, the third week. Carapaz is never one to count out, and he could really step up his game in this Vuelta, especially now that he knows there’s a red jersey up for grabs.

Carapaz’s form curve may need to be a bit steeper than that of many others, but it wouldn’t be the first time the Ecuadorian from EF has found his best form in the third week. If that’s the case, the others are in real trouble. They’ll have to put some distance between themselves and Carapaz while he still looks vulnerable.

On paper, the Dane may already be too far behind, but the same applies to him: the Tour de France was still weighing on his legs a bit during the first week, compared to his somewhat fresher competitors. Skjelmose finished sixth in the Tour and came to Spain with general classification ambitions. So far, it’s been a matter of fighting hard and limiting the damage, but a turning point could still be on the horizon for him as well.

Teammate Mads Pedersen has already said that his legs are finally starting to come back after the Tour, so Lidl-Trek can remain hopeful that the same goes for Skjelmose. Whether he’ll find the legs to really break away from the pack remains to be seen. But in a 32-kilometer time trial, a top-form Skjelmose can normally make up half of his current deficit against many pure climbers.

A lot of things would have to go right for Skjelmose to win this Vuelta. Perhaps a podium finish is more realistic, but without a clear favorite, the Vuelta a España could turn into a game of poker, where gaining time doesn’t always come down to just having the strongest legs. And the Dane has already shown in the past that he’s very tactically savvy.

Follow stage 9 LIVE here.