Enric Mas remained comfortably in red on Friday’s first of two decisive final mountain top finishes in the Vuelta a España, but he recognised that surviving Saturday’s mammoth stage 20 through the Sierra Nevada is key to overall success.
The Alto de Peñas Blancas summit climb on Friday saw Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Decathlon CMA CGM lay down a steady pace for their respective leaders and the closest rivals to Mas overall, Primož Roglič and Felix Gall, while EF Education-EasyPost’s Juan Felipe Rodríguez Contreras also put in a lengthy spell on the front for Richard Carapaz.
But beyond one testing acceleration by Roglič close to the summit, to which Mas responded easily, and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) dropping back yet again and sliding to ninth in the GC standings, there was no real GC action.
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The lack of time gaps leaves any last-minute change on the Vuelta GC hinging on Saturday’s brutally difficult four category 1 and hors categorie ascents, and once again Mas will be at the centre of any last-minute assault on the overall.
Both Roglič and Carapaz are clearly looking restless in terrain they know very well – and over climbs where Carapaz launched a long-distance attack to gain two minutes in the 2024 Vuelta.
Even if Mas described stage 20 as “possibly the most important of his career,” the Movistar racer’s relaxed demeanour after the stage did not suggest that he was in any way stressing about it.
“One more day of concentration and that’s it,” Mas told reporters afterwards. “Today was a complicated stage, long and with a lot of climbing, but I felt good. It’s the end of the season; logically everything takes its toll, but one more day is all that’s really left.”
The 31-year-old said he knows what is in store, with three major climbs – one, El Puerto de El Purche, tackled twice – and then the Puerto de El Duque and the Alto del Alguacil to follow.
Mas, like so many other riders in the peloton, has trained at altitude in nearby Sierra Nevada, so going to recon the Vuelta’s toughest single mountain stage almost inevitably formed part of the program.
“We all spend time there doing altitude training, and so everybody knows the climbs,” he said. “I’m expecting a near-replica of today, but with more mountain passes and 4,800 metres of vertical climbing.
“There will be a big fight at the start to get in the break, then things should stabilise, and after that we’ll be going flat out again in the finale.”
On Friday’s stage, Mas was forced to use his troops to reel in a very active Carapaz, who tried a similar move to the one in Calar Alto, attacking from 95 kilometres to go along with Visma-Lease a Bike’s Sepp Kuss.
Two Grand Tour winners going up the road was not something that Movistar could afford to see happening, particularly given Carapaz’s ability to rip up the script at any given moment, but Mas said it was not an overly complicated scenario to handle.
“It was a big war,” Mas said. “But we always had somebody with me, so I think we had everything under control. Sepp and Richie really wanted to go for it, maybe more for the stage, but they are a bit close in the GC, so we had to control them.
“But I think you saw my team handling it, they did a super good job again.”
The high mountains of Granada arguably represent a much bigger challenge for Mas and his team than the sierras of Malaga, but for now the 31-year-old is a day closer to the biggest win of his career and has yet to show any signs of weakness. At this point, it’s a case of – so far, then, so very good.
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