Vuelta a España Stage Report: Primoz Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) is the final overall winner of the 2024 Vuelta a España. This is his fourth Spanish Grand Tour win, tying him with Roberto Heras. The Slovenian took more time from his opponents in the final stage 21 time trial in Madrid. Ben O’Connor (Decathlon-AG2R-La Mondiale) and Enric Mas (Movistar) held onto their second and third places on the podium. The stage winner was Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), after many years of trying to win a GT time trial.
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The final K
Vuelta race director, Fernando Escartín: “La Vuelta will, once again, end with a time trial. Almost 22 km without any significant technical or orographic difficulties that will allow the specialists to test their all-rounder capabilities. If the general classification remains close at this point, these final 22 km will be full of excitement up until the very end.”
Stage 21 profile
Stage 21: After years of a sprint finish for the last stage, this year ends with a 22 kilometre time trial through the Spanish capital. The time trial route has no climbs as the centre of Madrid it is mostly flat. The time trial is also not particularly technical and is ridden in a southerly direction towards the centre. The start of the time trial is at the headquarters of the Spanish telecom giant Telefónica (Movistar), from where the riders will enter the old city centre via the M-612. After about 12 kilometres, the riders come into Madrid via the Tétuan district and will pass the Santiago Bernabéu football stadium. Four kilometres from the finish there is the fountain of Cibele and then the boulevard Paseo del Prado. At the botanical gardens, 2 kilometres from the finish, the riders will make a 360-degree turn back to the Paseo del Prado and the fountain of Cibele and the finish is on the Gran Via.
From the Movistar HQ the route went into the centre of Madrid past the Torres Kio
The 2024 Vuelta ended with a 24.6-kilometre time trial in Madrid, but the battle for the final victory had been decided on the previous two mountain stages. Primoz Roglič is by far the best against the clock of the GC riders and had an overall lead of 2:02 on Ben O’Connor in second place. But there was still rider fighting over the other top 10 places. It looked like O’Connor would hold his second place overall, but Enric Mas was third, only 9 seconds behind the Australian. Richard Carapaz, fouth overall, had a harder job as he was 49 seconds behind Mas.
Kaden Grove finished the TT to take the green jersey
There was still a battle for the stage between the time trial specialists. The first target time was set by Edoardo Affini. The Italian of Visma | Lease a Bike set a time of 27:34. He was 9 seconds faster than the Frenchman Thibault Guernalec. Affini wasn’t in the hot seat for long, because Victor Campenaerts soon beat his time.
Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny) was one of the early leaders
The Belgian had an excellent time, clocked the fastest intermediate times along the way and took 12 seconds off Affini’s time at the finish. With a time of 27:22, Campenaerts could take the top palce. Mauro Schmid, who had been in many breaks during la Vuelta, came in with a new top time of 27:15.
Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) was also in the hot seat for a short time
Schmid’s time also wasn’t fast enough. Filippo Baroncini pounded in with a time of 27:12. The former U23 World champion was 3 seconds faster than the Swiss rider. Would this be the winning time? Time trial specialist, Stefan Küng was still to finish. The Swiss rider is always a big favourite for the time trial, but the Groupama-FDJ rider tends to come up short of the big win.
Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) wasn’t going to loose his KOM jersey now
The two-time European TT champion was the first rider to go under 27 minutes, more than 40 seconds faster than everyone else. Küng time of 26:38, was at an average speed of 55.755kph, and would be very difficult to beat, except maybe by the red jersey, Primoz Roglič.
Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) set a new fast time, but then Küng came in
After Küng had set his top time, everyone’s attention was now on the GC men, especially the fight for second and third places on the final podium. Roglic was the second fastest at the first intermediate point, 13 seconds behind Küng, and was the fastest of the GC riders. O’Connor also had a fast start and had the third best time. The Australian 18 seconds behind Küng, but he was 12 seconds faster than Mas and had 15 seconds on Carapaz.
As expected, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) set a very good time
The podium places all looked to be safe. O’Connor continued his pace and extended his lead over the others in the second part of the stage. Mas was never able to get near O’Connor, but the Spaniard also had nothing to fear from Carapaz. Roglič had no worries about taking his fourth Vuelta a España overall victory and so didn’t take any risks, but was still the fastest of the GC riders.
Roglič couldn’t put the cherry on the cake with a final stage victory as Küng had ridden a storming TT. After many years of trying and places of honour, the Swiss rider finally took his first time trial victory in a Grand Tour. Roglič came in with the second fastest time at the finish, 31 seconds behind Küng, to win the Vuelta for the fourth time. He was joined on the final podium by O’Connor and Mas. Carapaz finished fourth and the best young rider, Mattias Skjelmose took fifth place from David Gaudu.
Stage winner, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ): “It’s amazing. I’ve been fighting for a Grand Tour stage win for a very long time. I really wanted that win today and I knew with this parcours you had to go out hard and keep it together until the end. That’s what I did I suffered a lot today but I think everyone did at the end of this hard Vuelta. And I’m just so happy that I got this win. It’s been a long time in the making. It’s always nice if you win with more than half a minute. It shows that you were absolutely the best, it was no coincidence today. It’s really nice and it finally repays all the work that we do as a team, that we do together with Wilier developing the new bike. We’ve just worked so hard, also myself. I always try to be professional, I always try to get the maximum out of me. It feels good. There is a lot of big individual time trials coming up and when you get the confidence, you just want to stay on the wave. I also think the Vuelta was for me the best possible preparation for the home Worlds because they’re also gonna be hard.”
Final overall winner and 2nd on the stage, Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe): “It’s nice [to hold the record for most overall victories in La Vuelta]. Today, I wanted to finish it off. It was tough but everything went fine and I’m happy. I saw [Stefan Küng’s performance]. We all know he’s strong in this kind of flat time-trials. Still, I tried to motivate myself to go for it, otherwise it’s even harder. So I pushed and in the end it was hard but I definitely want to congratulate him, he did a really good job. He was incredibly strong today. On my side, I’m enjoying. I have no words, it’s incredible [that Slovenia won all three Grand Tours in 2024]. It’s a lot of sacrifice [to get there]. It’s not only me. My family, everyone around, we all sacrifice dearly for this. I just feel happy that I can do it. I really appreciate the support that I get. Yes [five La Vuelta victories] would be nice [laughs]. It’s never enough… But four is already crazy.”
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Vuelta a España Stage 21 Result:
1. Stefan Küng (Sui) Groupama-FDJ in 26:28
2. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe 0:31
3. Mattia Cattaneo (Ita) Soudal Quick-Step at 0:41
4. Filippo Baroncini (Ita) UAE Team Emirates at 0:43
5. Mauro Schmid (Sui) Jayco AlUla at 0:46
6. Mathias Vacek (CZ) Lidl-Trek at 0:52
7. Victor Campenaerts (Bel) Lotto Dstny at 0:54
8. Mattias Skjelmose Jensen (Den) Lidl-Trek at 1:01
9. Harry Sweeny (Aus) EF Education-EasyPost at 1:02
10. Bruno Armirail (Fra) Decathlon-AG2R-La Mondiale at 1:03.
Vuelta a España Overall After Stage 21:
1. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe in 81:49:18
2. Ben O’Connor (Aus) Decathlon-AG2R-La Mondiale at 2:36
3. Enric Mas Nicolau (Spa) Movistar at 3:13
4. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost at 4:02
5. Mattias Skjelmose Jensen (Den) Lidl-Trek at 5:49
6. David Gaudu (Fra) Groupama-FDJ at 6:32
7. Florian Lipowitz (Ger) Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe at 7:05
8. Mikel Landa Meana (Spa) Soudal Quick-Step at 8:48
9. Pavel Sivakov (Fra) UAE Team Emirates at 10:04
10. Carlos Rodriguez Cano (Spa) INEOS Grenadiers at 11:19.
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