Who would have guessed ...... Just two days after Primoš Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) seemed to have once again leaped into pole position to win the Vuelta a España overall, the GC contenders suddenly found themselves in a wide open battle.

The Vuelta has always been good at creating the unexpected. Before 2023, for example, how many people honestly expected Sepp Kuss to be the overall winner? A gutsy long-distance breakaway by Ben O'Connor (who had previously been in the GC by two minutes, and was at least initially favored to win the stage) propelled the Australian to the overall lead as well. And by a huge margin that could have won the race.

Comparisons to O'Connor's situation and to the seemingly innocuous first-week breakaway in 2023, in which Kuss went straight to victory, are of course valid. However, given the precedent of 2023, and the fact that teams have probably been more than aware of such risks since then, it is hard to understand how a similar scenario could unfold again, and by a rider with a far superior track record in GC.

But this is the way it is, and the Slovenian, who had a staggering six and a half minute lead over O'Connor on stage one, has now slipped to second place, 4:51 behind the new race leader. By any standard, O'Connor's rise to the top is troubling for Roglic and could be a very significant setback.

Patsy Villa, Red Bull-Borla-Hansgrohe's sporting director, directly admitted that she had always planned to use Roglic's teammate Florian Lipowitz to keep the Australian under control during the one-day break. But, as Villa told Spanish television, “it got out of hand.”

“It didn't go the way I wanted it to. The start was a really fast move and the break today (including O'Connor, Lipowitz, and 11 others) was really strong. I thought with Lipo there and with Ben it would be fine, and I thought we would have another option on GC,” Villa said.

Lipowitz did his best, and thanks to his third place in the stage, he moved up to fourth overall. Critically, however, when O'Connor attacked, Lipowitz was unable to follow, and as O'Connor unexpectedly increased the pressure, his seemingly unbreakable advantage with Red Bull's main GC man, Roglic, began to crumble.

“What O'Connor did was unbelievable. I've rarely seen anything like that,” Villa said, explaining that he had very much underestimated the Australian. He didn't lose time on the last climb. He didn't lose time on the last climb.

“I thought with Lipo going into the break, the other teams would move. But O'Connor was much stronger than I thought, so things got out of hand.”

Lipowitz admitted that initially Red Bull's plan was to get away with it without any of their riders participating.

“But there was a lot of movement on the climb, so we went with it.

“Nobody was moving and there were a lot of attacks. My legs were really good and I'm happy with my form. But I could have done more.”

”In the end, I couldn't get on Ben's move. He just went.

Roglic himself paused briefly to speak to the press, but after such a difficult day for the team, he was not in the most communicative mood.

“We can't control everything, and yesterday [Wednesday] I said the plan is to let them have the day off. Florian did a great job. It was a slippery descent and it was tricky.

But the million-dollar question of how dangerous a rider like Ben O'Connor is from a GC standpoint had an even shorter answer.

“We'll find out when the race is over,” said Roglic, as he quickly made his way through the riders at the finish line to the team bus.

As for where Red Bull, which still has 15 stages to go, Villa assured that all was not lost, but admitted that beating the Australian was a process of attrition rather than expecting O'Connor to suddenly collapse.

“We just have to do what we can, little by little. We have a long way to go and it's good to have a strong team, so that's a plus.”

“Today was a bad day, things were out of control. But hopefully we can turn it around.”

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