Dan Martin and Sam Bennett had a mixed day on stage 16 of La Vuelta; Martin defending his general classification position and Bennett finding the going very tough again as the race nears a close.
Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) said that his legs were "gone" on stage 10, before adding his condition had rallied in the following days, even though they were much hillier.
However, he once again endured a rough time today and was in difficulty at the back of the bunch with just over 70km remaining on the stage, though the climbs this time were large.
In the end he got through the stage in reasonably good order, placing 100th in a small group at 15:21 on a day when there was a much larger group further back the road at 17:48.
Bennett will look to get through tomorrow's mountain stage before he should have a chance at another win on the final day of the race into Madrid on Sunday; a stage he was 2nd on last year.
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Today Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) finished in the reduced bunch that was sprinting for stage victory after the hilly 162km race from Salamanca to Ciudad Rodrigo.
With cat 2 and cat 1 climbs in the second half of the stage today, the bunch was whittled down to just 40 riders by the finish. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) led out the sprint but he faded and a number of riders came around him.
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On the line it was Magnus Cort who claimed the victory, the third win of La Vuelta for his EF Pro Cycling team which also has Hugh Carthy 3rd overall with two stages remaining.
Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) was 2nd on today's stage; the race leader taking a useful time bonus for his efforts but also looking annoyed he had not won the stage.
While Rui Costa (UAE Team Emirates) was 3rd over the line he was relegated for dangerous sprinting, which bumped Dion Smith (Mitchelton-Scott) up to 3rd, with Valverde 4th.
As Dan Martin was in the front group, in 22nd place, he retains his 4th place overall, though Roglic gained six seconds on him after the Slovenian’s time bonus today.
Going into the last mountain stage tomorrow, and the penultimate day of La Vuelta 2020, Roglic leads the race by 45 seconds from Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers). Carapaz also contested the sprint today but was 5th and so out of the time bonuses.
In 3rd overall is British rider Hugh Carthy (EF Pro Cycling), some 53 seconds off the race lead. Then comes Ireland’s Martin in 4th overall, 1:48 down on the race leader and 55 seconds down on Carthy in 3rd.
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