Sam Bennett may get shot at win on brief break from big Vuelta climbs

*Sam Bennett has gotten through some very hard stages on the climbs and today's TT at La Vuelta. But he may now get a chance to fight it out for a stage win*

Sam
Bennett has come through some very challenging stages in the mountains at the
Vuelta, as well as today’s TT, and may now get another chance to sprint for
victory.

The
Irish rider won stage 3 into Alicante last week and was pipped for the win the
following day into El Puig.

Tomorrow’s
stage 11, some 180km from Saint-Palais to Urdax-Dantxarinea, is far from
a nailed-on sprinters’ day.

However, in a Vuelta very definitely not suited to
the fast men, tomorrow represents one of very few chances for a bunch gallop
over the remainder of the race.

There’s a cat 3 some 70km into the stage followed by a cat 2 – of 8.1km at 6.3 per cent – crested after 123km.

*Roglic on his way to victory in the points jersey. He now has the race lead at La Vuelta*

The final ascent tomorrow is the cat 3 Col de Otxondo which is 7.6km averaging 4.2 per cent. It peaks out with 37.5km remaining.

While
the racing could split long before the final ascent, if it stays together there
is only a small uncategorised climb with 8km remaining for Bennett to negotiate.

And if the bunch is intact and a breakaway has not ridden away, the Irish sprinter could be in the fight for another win after switching to survival mode over the past week.

Today
the Bora-hansgrohe Irishman rode within himself on the 36.2km TT into Pau.

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He
finished in 157^th place, some 8:11 down on stage winner Primoz
Roglic (Jumbo-Visma).

The
Slovenian rider put considerable time into all of his general classification
rivals and beat Kiwi Patrick Bevin (CCC Team) into 2^nd place by 25
seconds.

*Nairo Quintana lost a lot of time today and his red jersey*

Rémi
Cavagna (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was 3^rd on the
stage, some 27 seconds behind the flying winner.

Queen stage winner on Sunday Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates) underlined his general
classification credentials by placing 11^th.

The
20-year-old was 1:29 down on the winner but that was a very strong ride in
comparison to the other general classification men.

Alejandro
Valverde (Movistar) was 13^th
at 1:38 while Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) was 14^th at 2:00.

Nairo
Quintana was 27^th at 3:06 and both he and Valverde were well beaten
by their team mate Marc Soler who was 8^th on the stage at 1:22.

The
result sees Roglic lead overall from Valverde by a massive 1:52, with Lopez in
3^rd at 2:11; a not insurmountable gap if he can climb at his best.

Quintana
is now 4^th at 3:00 and podium dark horse Pogačar is next; in 5^th
place at 3:05.