Six riders were in the day’s breakaway in this sixteenth stage. Everything came back together again in the final kilometres. In the sprint, Roglic had to slow down and as a result, he came a little short behind Magnus Cort.

“I really would have liked to win a fifth stage”, Roglic explained. “But Cort was the best today. I am happy with the bonus seconds. So all in all it is still a good day for us. When I saw that the sprinters got dropped on the last climb, I knew that it was possible to go for another stage win. So I decided to go for it. As a leader in the points classification you have to be able to sprint a little bit, right?”

Tomorrow the battle for the overall victory will normally be decided with a mountaintop finish at La Covatilla. “This stage will not lie”, Roglic looked ahead. “It’s the decisive stage for the GC, so I certainly expect attacks from Ineos, Movistar and Carthy. It’s not going to be an easy stage to control, but the team has shown to be very strong. We have to keep doing what we’ve been doing the whole Vuelta and hopefully I have good legs to keep the red jersey.”