On the fast final descent of stage 9 of the Vuelta a España, Enric Mas (Movistar) came within inches of crashing.

In a heart-stopping moment for television viewers, the cameras showed Mas wobbling wildly to the right and nearly falling over.

Fortunately, however, a series of crash barriers running parallel to the road on the side of the mountain suddenly took up some distance, allowing the Movistar racer the space he needed to regain control of his bike.

Fifty meters before and after that point on the descent, a high-speed crash would have been inevitable for the masses. Instead, it was a breakaway that started at Alto de Hazaranas, and at one point he was nearly a minute ahead of overall leader Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).

Mas, a three-time runner-up at the Vuelta a España and second at Cazorla the day before, was finally caught in the Roglic group near the finish in Granada. Afterwards, however, he admitted that he was very lucky, although he said that the near-crash looked worse than it actually was.

“I think it looked scarier on TV than it actually was. Basically, the wind blew me away.

“But I didn't fall, and I'm glad I didn't because there was gravel space next to the road surface. I don't know if it was the surface or the wind, but I was scared on the way down.

“Especially when I wanted to change my line but I went off the track. That gravel was just perfect. I'm very thankful I didn't fall."

”I'm very thankful I didn't fall.

In any case, overall, Mas was aware that the Vuelta was going well up to today. He was able to follow Roglic in both the stage 4 Vil Elkas and the stage 2 Cazorla summit finish, and is now running in fourth place overall, 4:35 behind race leader Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).

“More than anything, I'm happy with the feeling,” Mas said of his unprecedented ability to drop Roglic in the mountain stages of the Vuelta.

“If I had finished on the summit today, though, it would have been a different story. With a finish like Lagos de Covadonga, you just hope it would have gone differently.”

Mas recognized that the story of this year's Vuelta a España has changed dramatically, claiming that the race is wide open and “much more interesting than the Tour de France.”

“I started the day with the intention of attacking, but I didn't know if I would attack on the first or the second Hazaranas.

“I saw a moment of weakness in the peloton, the favorite to win, and I attacked. But the strongest climber today was Adam Yates.”

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