La Vuelta Ciclista a España 2024 Stage 15

September 1, 2024 The GC will likely change once again with a summit finish on the Especial climb of Cuitu Negru in Asturius. It is over 19KM long at 5.2% but the difficulties start at 7.5KM to go and it only gets steeper near the top, maxing out at 24% before the line. A group of nine got away after 12KM but the attacks continued the whole way up the Alto de la Colladiella. Louis Meintjes of Intermarché-Wanty crossed 1 minute on the climb to make ten up front with more chasing behind. The pace in the peloton was relentless which brought the gap down to 30 seconds. Only 7 riders went over the top in front of the main GC group of around 20 riders. T-Rex Quickstep kept the pressure high on the the descent and caught the break with 95KM to go when the road flattened out before the Alto de Santo Emiliano. A group of 17 formed on the climb and the peloton settled down. Most of the dropped riders were able to get back to the bunch as the gap extended to 2 minutes 30 seconds when the break went over the top. The race went back over the Alto de la Colladiella but it was less destructive this time around. Jay Vine of UAE did the majority of the pulling from the break which was reduced to just seven riders. Along with Vine was his teammate Pavel Sivakov, Bruno Armirail of Decathlon AG2R, Quentin Pacher and Stefan Küng of Groupama-FDJ, Pablo Castrillo of Equipo Kern Pharma, and Aleksandr Vlasov of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe. They went over the top with 54.4KM to go and a gap of 2 minutes 45 seconds. A few kilometers before the final climb up to Cuitu Negru, Primož Roglič of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe stopped to change his bike. The swap put him on a 1x front chainring with a much larger cassette to allow him to spin easier up the brutal ramps near the top. In the break, Vine buried himself into the base of the climb with 19KM to go as they started with a gap of just over 3 minutes. One by one the break was reduced under the pressure of Sivakov until it was just Castrillo and Vlasov with him. The trio still had 2 minutes with 4KM to go on a group that only contained about 15 riders but the worst was yet to come. Castrillo put in a hard attack at 3KM to go and immediately had a gap. Vlasov was able to get to Castrillo at 900M but the grade was 22% and both were creeping. Castrillo put in another dig with 300M to go. Vlasov couldn't keep up and Castrillo crossed the line for his second win of the race. Sivakov came in a few seconds after Vlasov for third place. Roglič made his move from the GC group with his teammate Florian Lipowitz at 2.5KM to go and none of the GC favorites could follow. Enric Mas of Movistar clawed across with 1.5KM to go and temporarily dropped Roglič. Roglič fought to the line and caught Mas with 20M to go to finish on the same time. Even with such a tough climb, everyone kept their GC spot. It was called after the stage that Roglič would be given a 20 second penalty for sitting behind his team car after the bike change. Roglič now sits just over 1 minute behind Ben O'Connor for the overall race lead.