La Vuelta 2020 - Primoz Roglic wins opening Vuelta stage as Chris Froome falls out of contention

ByEurosport

Updated 20/10/2020 at 16:37 GMT

Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) surged into the leader's jersey at La Vuelta with victory on day one of the Spanish Grand Tour. A string of tricky climbs saw the general classification shaken up right from the off, with only eight riders finishing within 40 seconds of Roglic, and Chris Froome struggling badly as he continues to search for his top fitness and form after that horror accident in 2019.

Primoz Roglic produced an early show of strength to win Stage 1 of La Vuelta and take the leader’s jersey from the outset of the Grand Tour in which he is defending champion.

Roglic showed he’s still in the form that saw him lead the Tour de France up until the penultimate stage, blasting off the front of a select group of riders as the Vuelta opened up with some steep climbs on a difficult opening day.

'Primoz the supreme!' - Watch as Roglic storms to Stage 1 victory at La Vuelta

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Richard Carapaz (Ineos), Dan Martin (Israel StartUp Nation) and Esteban Chavez (Mitchelton Scott) followed Roglic over the line, with only eight riders finishing within 40 seconds of the Slovenian to set the GC battle up nicely right from the off.

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Chris Froome’s chances of a Grand Tour GC challenge appear to already be over after the Ineos rider put in a showing that suggested his form and fitness is not yet back to its best.

Froome struggled at the back of the peloton before eventually being dropped inside the last 10km, with his own team Ineos setting the blistering pace at the front that proved too much for the 35-year-old.

Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), the standout support rider of the season already, secured a king of the mountains jersey after leading the elite section over the summit of the Alto de Arrate.

The points jersey will be owned by Roglic tomorrow but worn by second-placed Carapaz. Enric Mas is the best young rider.

There were two confirmed abandons during the opening stage with Ilan Van Wilder (Team Sunweb), Matthias Frank (AG2R LaMondiale) and an as-yet-unconfirmed third report of Alexandre Geniez, also of AG2R, pulling out. With no immediately evident cause for these withdrawals, questions will be raised about possible Covid-19 cases.

EF Pro Cycling had a disastrous day out, with crashes for their two leaders, Michael Woods and Dani Martinez. The Colombian did the better in the final results, but still came home four-and-a-half minutes off the pace. Britain's Hugh Carthy, seventh on the day, looked to be in pugilistic form with a couple of attacks on the steepest parts of the last climb of the day, the brutally steep Alto de Arrate – and he becomes the team's de facto GC leader now, just 14 seconds off the lead.

Thibaut Pinot also performed well below his expected level, finishing more than 10 minutes down on the leaders – and already the GC has a vastly different complexion to what was expected in the build-up.

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