Vuelta a Espana 2021 - Stage 21 LIVE: Primoz Roglic poised to win third red jersey

His Jumbo-Visma team is there to greet him in front of the cathedral, as he takes a well-deserved curtain call. A time of 44 minutes, 2 seconds, an average speed of 46km/hour gives him a victory margin of 4 minutes, 42 seconds over Enric Mas. This has surely been his most comfortable victory of the three. The question is, how many more?

The podium places are as they were at the start of the day. A good effort but not quite good enough for Adam Yates to displace Jack Haig who has himself been extremely impressive as the backup leader of Bahrain Victoriious.

With Enric Mas in his sights. What did I say about doubling his advantage?

A time of 45'51 breaks him into the top ten on the stage. The (still very young) Colombian has won as many fans through the way he has ridden to his sixth place in this race as he did with his Giro and Tour de France victories. He seems genuinely humble, magnanimous and respectful towards his fellow riders, including how pleased he was for Gino Mader to take the white jersey off him yesterday, and in being prepared to sacrifice his own overall position to help Adam Yates to the stage win.

1. Magnus Cort Nielsen in 44' 16"
2. Thymen Arensman + 00' 38"
3. Josef Černý + 01' 02"
4. Chad Haga + 01' 29"
5. Felix Grossschartner + 01' 38"
6. Steven Kruijswijk + 01' 38"
7. Ion Izaguirre Insausti + 01' 52"
8. Nico Denz + 02' 03"
9. Lawson Craddock + 02' 08"
10. Jan Polanc + 02' 10"

No surprise that the Olympic TT champion, riding to his third title, is going well. He’s been peerless at this race and could be about to take his fourth stage victory. Carlton is worried that his race-issued skinsuit is chafing a bit, though. I’m not examining it that closely.

If I find myself on the tube with you, I'm having a word, Magnus. He looks happy enough in the hot seat however. In the commentary box, Carlton Kirby is very excitable, and I'm enjoying his excitement very much.

Adam’s already picked up around 30 seconds on his minute man, Jack Haig, whose minute man he is. That’s impressive, but half as much as he needs to displace the Australian from the podium. Has the older Yates brother gone out too hard in this first section?

I believe “dialled” is the expression you’re supposed to employ to describe someone who looks that steady on a TT bike, although I don’t really know what it means. Number 1 on his back, big gear revolving a big rear disc wheel… Can you tell I don’t know much about time trial bikes? And nor do I care to, thank you very much. Why is it not red, though?

Update: King Kelly says Rog is riding a 58. Which I know to be a big big gear.

The white jersey wearer wobbles along the cobbles towards what will be a career-best result in a Grand Tour for the 24 year-old. At the start of the Vuelta, the Swiss man committed himself to donating 1€ to an environmental charity for every rider he beat on every stage. Yesterday’s impressive result, in which he finished 5th, took him to a total of 3048€. The prize money alone should cover that, I reckon.

David de la Cruz of Ineos has just rolled down the ramp, with Cofidis’ Guillaume Martin up next. That’s the closest gap between any pair of riders in the GC, with just eight seconds between them. De la Cruz is comfortably the better time trialist of the two, so I’m predicting them to swap places in 46 minutes (or thereabouts.)

A fetching flash of blue, black and white as the Estonian national champion, who took stage three and spent two stages in rojo, crosses the finish line. With Odd Christian Eiking enjoying a stint in red, Intermarche have had a very respectable Grand Tour. Good on ‘em.

Please do not call it a podium. We do not have podium places for individual stages and that is the small hill I will die on. Anyway, the 21 year-old rider for Team DSM has had a pretty decent Vuelta by all accounts, and he's certainly finishing strongly. Only 25 seconds slower than Magnus Cort Nielsen.

Nielsen displaces the Czech by finishing more than a minute faster than the Deceuninck man. We won’t really know how good that is until Rog gets going, but a fourth stage win at this Vuelta is looking like a strong possibility. "That's caught a lot of us by surprise," says Dan Lloyd, of the Dane, who has never taken a TT as a professional. Pun intended?

No camera on the dane but according to the data, he had 28 seconds in hand over Cerny at the last intermediate split. We could have a new leader in the clubhouse... Could it even be enough to nab him another stage?

Set to retire at the end of this run, the Italian has found bike racing far more difficult in the last few years than he did in the early part of his career. He hasn’t won since taking stage five of the Tour de France in 2017, having taken five Grand Tour stages and the Vuelta overall over a period of little more than 12 months, not long before that. Happy for him if he’s making this decision happily, but sorry to see him go.

First we've seen of our leader in the hot seat - or silla caliente, as I've just learned it's called in Spanish - on the phone, presumably speaking to his mum. I thought Chad Haga, who won the final day time trial at the 2019 Giro d'Italia in 2019, might give him a run for his money, but no. The American crosses the line 27 seconds down.

It’s certainly more possible than anything else! There’s 2’38 between Enric Mas (Movistar) in second and Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) in third, with Haig just one minute ahead of Adam Yates (Team Ineos). Over a 34km course that’s less than pan flat, those are all perfectly bridgeable gaps, particularly if there’s a sizable discipline difference between the rivals. Unfortunately for us neutrals, there isn’t one - at least if the opening stage TT is anything to go by. That day, Mas beat Yates by two seconds, with Haig one more behind him. Of course, a lot of physical changes will have happened to their bodies over three weeks, and anything can happen on the day, but it’s hard to imagine anyone losing or gaining as much as a minute.

Bernie Eisel has just been speaking to one of the men of the moment, Fabio Jakobsen, whose has been arguably the real story of this Vuelta. Who doesn’t love a comeback eh? "It’s a special feeling," he tells Bernie. "My team-mates mean so much to me. They stay with me on the uphill, and they pull for me in the valley. Nice lad.

There are no mountains points on offer today, nor points points, which means as long as Michael Storer completes the course, as Fabio Jakobsen just has, they will be the winners of those competitions. The leader of the young rider competition is Gino Mader of Bahrain Victorious. The Swiss roller (had to) took the white jersey from Egan Bernal yesterday, after the Colombian lost a chunk of time. Mader leads that one by 3.24, so although that one is not over over, Mader really just needs to stay on his bike as well. Our headline act is la rojo, Primoz Roglic who leads the overall by 2’34 from Enric Mas. It’s not the biggest lead but based on their respective records in this discipline it could well be close to double that by the end of today.

No great surprise there. Deceuninck Quick-Step's Czech champion might be last in the GC, but that doesn't mean he's not a pretty fine time trialist, and finished fifth in the opening day TT of this very Vuelta. 45' 18" seems pretty respectable to me - particularly compare to the time of his team-mate, Fabio Jakobsen, who crosses the line in a lurid green skinsuit some seven minutes slower. I don't expect Černý to win the stage, but he could well be in the hotseat for some time yet.

Which means, because 142 riders finished yesterday's stage, we've got 43 riders currently out on course. For those not completely familiar with how these things work, the riders go at minute intervals, in reverse order according to their GC position. That should mean the final rider to cross the line will be Primoz Roglic, who starts at 19.43 local time, that's just over two hours from now. Meanwhile, we're about to see who's going to be first into the hotseat - where the current leader sits awkwardly in wait to see if his time is improved upon. Who's it gonna be??

We’re all set for stage veintiuno of La Vuelta a España 2021. It’s the final day of Grand Tour racing of the season - though far from the last big day of racing of the year. It’s not the usual pretend race into Madrid but a final day time trial, taking the riders from Padrón - yes, as in the peppers - to Santiago de Compostela, Galicia’s iconic capital. Those familiar with my work - hi mum! - will know I’m no fan of the processional finale to a Grand Tour, so I’m delighted to be keeping you company for the duration of this very proper, and not at all processional stage. Primoz Roglic might be set to be crowned the King of Spain for the third time but there are no certainties in this game. So grab your glass of Sangria, Godello or Espadeiro, and enjoy what promises to be a charming evening’s racing.

Where on earth did he come from? That must have been the thought that popped into Adam Yates’ mind as, with 1.6km to go, Clement Champoussin (AG2R Citroen) darted past to steal the stage from several of the biggest name riders in the sport.

It ought not to have come as such a surprise. The 23 year-old Frenchman’s palmares might not have been adorned with any big victories before today, but he finished third from the breakaway on Stage 10 of this race, and fifth when the race finished in Pico Villuercas a week ago.

Perhaps it came down to a stroke of luck, or inattention from others. Once the big name red jersey train caught the all-day break that he had been in, and then fell into the second part of, its locomotives appeared to decide the day’s work was done. They only had eyes for each other, content for the group’s lesser names to hitch a ride to the finish. In retrospect - because let us not pretend that we were watching him particularly closely either - that will have been perfectly fine by Champoussin.

Champoussin crossed the line six seconds ahead of Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) in a thrilling finale with Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) settling for third, while it emerged during the finale that Miguel Angel Lopez (Movistar) abandoned the race with just 20km remaining after seeing his podium hopes vanish. Sunday’s race-concluding time trial is unlikely to throw up the same drama unless the Slovenian leader has a major mechanical or crash.

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