Vuelta a España leader Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) recognized that he had a one-trick pony day in Cazorla on Saturday with a lung-burstingly steep final climb. O'Connor lost nearly a minute to pre-race leader Primoš Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), reducing his overall advantage to just under four minutes.

After the route took a sharp right turn at the base of the final 5km climb, O'Connor responded well to Roglic's initial pace increase, constantly following the Slovenian's shadow until almost halfway up the climb.

But again and again, O'Connor suddenly collapsed as Roglic pushed forward. O'Connor appeared to be in serious trouble as he was overtaken by players who fell victim to Roglic's pressure.

Eventually, O'Connor was able to steady the ship to the point where he reduced the gap to 46 seconds, earning himself a 10-second time bonus. But while expectations soared for Roglic to gain an advantage on the climbs in Sunday's much tougher stage, O'Connor was on the back foot, and his seemingly unassailable advantage on GC looked more vulnerable than expected.

“I was a little disappointed,” he said. [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]

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