Primoz Roglic wins the Vuelta a España for a second consecutive year

Pascal Ackermann awarded final stage sprint victory after photo-finish sprint against Sam Bennett in Madrid

After Roglic had missed the final win in the Tour de France in extremis last September, he took the win in the Spanish stage race. Roglic won four stages during this Vuelta a España, including the individual time trial to Mirador de Ézaro. The points classification was also won by the Slovenian. Earlier this year, he won the Tour de l’Ain, a stage in the Tour de France and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Roglic is happy that he has won the Spanish stage race for the second time in his career,  “Me and my teammates fought for it every day. We considered each stage as a one-day race. I am very proud of the performance that we all achieved. During the past three weeks I still felt in good shape. I am happy that I can end my season in this way. In the coming period I will take a break, but then I will make plans with the team for 2021. There are still a few goals I want to achieve in my career. That is an enormous motivation for me for the coming years.”

“The 2019 win was of course special, because I won my first grand tour then”, the Slovenian continued. “Nevertheless, I also rate this victory very highly, because it is part of the great season that I have had. We should be happy that, given the situation in the world, we were able to ride the Vuelta this year. For that I would like to thank the organisation of the Vuelta and all those involved. It was very well organised here.”

Pascal Ackermann (Bora Hansgrohe) won the final stage of the 2020 Vuelta a España after a photo finish was needed to decide the winner in Madrid. The German narrowly held of a late challenge from Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) with the Irishman finishing second. Max Kanter (Team Sunweb) completed the top-three.

Green Points Jersey: Roglic held it from start to finish.
White Young Rider’s Jersey: Enric Mas
Blue Polka Dot Climber’s Jersey: Guillaume Martin. Cofidis’s ace just missed out on the Tour top-10 and took 14th in Vuelta. Moving into the polka dots after Stage 7, Martin raced intelligently to keep it away from double stage winner Tim Wellens and the guys higher on GC. Martin never finished lower than 14th in any stage race or one-day race the entire season. 

VIDEO: 2020 La Vuelta Stage 18 Highlights

2020 La Vuelta Stage 18 Top 10

1 Pascal Ackermann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe 3:28:13
2 Sam Bennett (Irl) Deceuninck-Quickstep
3 Max Kanter (Ger) Team Sunweb
4 Jasper Philipsen (Bel) UAE Team Emirates
5 Jasha Sütterlin (Ger) Team Sunweb
6 Emmanuel Morin (Fra) Cofidis
7 Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (RSA) NTT Pro Cycling
8 Lorrenzo Manzin (Fra) Total Direct Energie
9 Robert Stannard (Aus) Mitchelton-Scott
10 Jon Aberasturi Izaga (Spa) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA

2020 La Vuelta Final General Classification

1 Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma 72:46:12
2 Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers 0:00:24
3 Hugh Carthy (GBr) EF Pro Cycling 0:01:15
4 Daniel Martin (Irl) Israel Start-Up Nation 0:02:43
5 Enric Mas Nicolau (Spa) Movistar Team 0:03:36
6 Wout Poels (Ned) Bahrain McLaren 0:07:16
7 David De la Cruz Melgarejo (Spa) UAE Team Emirates 0:07:35
8 David Gaudu (Fra) Groupama-FDJ 0:07:45
9 Felix Grossschartner (Aut) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:08:15
10 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 0:09:34