His voice may have been muffled by the facemask, but there was still a heroic ring to the words of Enric Mas, who was in the media scrum atop Quitu Negru. 'Tenemos muja vuelta,' he said.”

On Friday evening, atop Puerto de Anchares, I wondered if Mas was slowly brushing aside his thoughts of winning this Vuelta. The Spaniard, who had been a constant presence and spot-on in the early stages of the race as Primoš Roglic accelerated, suffered the humiliation of losing a minute in the finale of stage 13 when he was burned off the Slovenian's wheel.

After a spirited ride on the fog-shrouded peak of Quitu Negru on stage 15, Mas caught and briefly pulled away from Roglic on a dizzying last mile or so of slopes.

Logrich caught up to Mas' rear wheel before the finish line came into sight in the dark, but the Spaniard could at least claim a psychological victory. After switching bikes on the final climb, the race jury gave Roglic a 20-second deduction for drafting behind the Red Bull-Bohra-Hansgrohe team car. [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]

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