Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Enric Mas added to his lead of the Spanish Vuelta on a mountainous 14th stage in southern Spain on Saturday.
The stage was won by Marco Brenner but Mas tacked some 25 seconds on to his advantage over Primoz Roglic after dropping the four-time former winner on the final climb and linking up with Raul Garcia from his Movistar team.
Felix Gall crossed with Mas and moved into second place ahead of Roglic in the general classification. Gall is 2 minutes, 6 seconds behind Mas, with Roglic falling to 2:10 behind the leader.
Brenner won the gruelling 151.9km stage after he overcame his fellow breakaway riders and edged Santiago Buitrago at the finish. Brenner had time to zip up his Tudor team suit just as he crossed the line in 4 hours, 15 minutes, 9 seconds. It was the 24-year-old German rider’s first win at a Grand Tour.
“I think it’s the best day of my cycling life, but I cannot really believe it yet,” Brenner said. “There’s not many cyclists who achieve a stage win in a Grand Tour, and to add this to my palmares (triumphs) is really amazing.”
The stage was held in an area just north of Granada that was under a heat warning with highs forecast for 38 Celsius in Jaen, where the day’s racing started. Riders tackled a pair of category-two climbs as they rode through a landscape of sunbaked olive groves before a final ascent to the category-one Sierra de la Pandera.
Riders were regularly grabbing water bottles from team helpers and promptly pouring them over their heads or squirting them on teammates.
Race organisers announced they were shortening Sunday’s 15th stage with “the aim of protecting the health of the riders and ensuring the best possible conditions for the competition”.
The hilly stage ending in the city of Cordoba will be cut from 189km to 110km and the start will also be delayed until later in the afternoon.
Mas has led the race since Tour champion Tadej Pogacar withdrew following a crash that has ended his season. Now he has one week of racing left at the Vuelta, where he has finished runner-up on three occasions, in 2018, 2021 and 2022.
Mas is trying to become the first Spanish rider to win the home race since Alberto Contador in 2014.
Pogacar has confirmed his season is over after his heavy crash in the Spanish Vuelta and that he extended his contract with UAE Team Emirates-XRG for another two years through 2032.
The five-time Tour de France winner’s decision to end his season rules out a defence of the world championship title he won in 2024 and 2025.
“Of course, this isn’t the way I wanted my season to finish. Right now, the most important thing is to recover properly and give my body the time it needs,” Pogacar said in a statement issued by his team.
