Should we expect another attack from Roglic in Vuelta? "A moment to restrain ourselves"

With four Vuelta a España stages to go, Primoz Roglic is just five seconds behind the red jersey holder Ben O'Connor. The Slovenian of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe seems to have perfect papers since uphill is all about following, considering the final time trial.

"I would say we are almost in the lead, so we don't have to try to drop anyone. That's the main thing. If someone wants to go, we must try to follow; that's the most important thing right now," sporting director Patxi Vila explained in a conversation with Cyclingnews. "At Lagos de Covadonga, we did that - the idea was to follow, stay there, and then see if someone still has a not-so-good day."

Vila continued briefly about the stage to the Lagos de Covadonga, where Roglic crossed the finish line simultaneously with Enric Mas and Richard Carapaz. "The goal was to ride to the top with Enric and the other main favorites and see if we could get some lead on O'Connor without going too crazy. It was already a tough stage. This is a moment where we try to avoid big efforts and keep the pace as high as possible. I think it's a time to restrain ourselves and just ride with the best to the finish."

According to Vila, as many others argue, Mas is still the biggest opponent for Roglic. After all, the Movistar Spaniard shows hardly any signs of doubt and is riding strongly uphill. But first, of course, the main thing is to slowly but surely ride O'Connor out of the jersey, something that has thus already pretty much succeeded. "For various reasons, there was always someone among the GC riders who wanted to control or perform a certain action. We took advantage of that, and hopefully, in the last week, we'll have the team more focused and fit than some of the other contenders,' Vila said, 'but it's still been a super tough Vuelta for everyone."

O'Connor on relentless Roglic

O'Connor also briefly commented on the same English-language platform article about Roglic: "I think his attitude generally comes across as relaxed, but I think he is pretty relentless in how he operates. He knows his strengths very well, and I think he does a very good job of limiting the days when it's not quite up his alley. But he was at his strongest in some of the other stages, and he made it count," the Aussie was obvious.