La Return, after the first day of rest and on the eve of today's time trial in Pau which marks the start of the second week of racing, sees four bigs collected in 20”. After nine stages, the leader in red shirt is Nairo Quintana, winner of the second stage, who seems to have returned to his best standards, strong uphill, never a blank joke in the continuous tussles of the Spanish competition, so much so that he also leads the points classification.
Six seconds from the recovered Colombian "condor" is Primoz Roglich, who has so far conceded little to his rivals on the great ascents and who today on the 36,2 km race against the clock has the opportunity to turn the situation around in his favor by conquering the symbol of supremacy.
Behind the Slovenian, third at 17" from Quintana there is another Colombian, Miguel Angel Lopez, the captain of Astana, already in the red jersey twice after the victorious team time trial that opened the Vuelta and the seventh stage with an uphill finish in Mas de la Costa. He would probably still be leading the standings if in the short but terrible stage in the mountains surrounding Andorra with arrival at the top of Cortals d'Encamp, he hadn't crashed, under the fury of rain and hail, on the dirt road that preceded the final ascent by which time he had disconnected everyone.
Three seconds behind Lopez follows the timeless Alexander Valverde, the world champion, already winner in 2009, who is riding his 13th Vuelta in a great way in which he has already won a stage victory in Mas de la Costa ahead of Roglic, Lopez and Quintana.
The winner of this year's edition should emerge from this poker of big names, confirming the golden moment of Colombian cycling, already dominating the Tour with Egan Bernal, as well as the growth of the Slovenian who, after Roglic, is showcasing a new young talent : Tadej Pogacar.
And it is precisely this young man of just twenty who could mess up the solid forecasts of the Spanish race: his solitary victory at Cortals d'Encamp projected him to fifth place in the general classification, 1'42” behind Quintana. Today Pogacar is expected at the time trial test which could allow him to close the gaps, if not on Roglic and Valverde, on the two big Colombians who have never shone in this specialty. Quintana knows something about it who lost the pink jersey in the last stage against the clock, from Monza to Milan, in the 2017 Giro d'Italia won by Tom Dumoulin.
Out definitively from the games of the high ranking is now over Fabio Arau, who after deluding himself that he was on the right track got lost in the Andorra stage, ending up behind the lines more than half an hour behind the leaders.
