Enric Mas took the red jersey when Tadej Pogacar crashed out of Stage 8. Primoz Roglic sits behind him at 1:18. Felix Gall, riding for Decathlon CMA CGM, is third at 1:39. That is not a comfortable lead for the two riders above him, and the racing so far has been about them, not him.
On the morning after Pogacar’s abandon, Gall told Cyclingnews the race had reset.
“Today it means we have a new race now, everything is possible,” he said, wishing Pogacar a fast recovery in the same breath.
Pogacar hit an object in the road around 32 kilometres from the finish at Xeraco. Medical staff diagnosed a concussion, a displaced left clavicle fracture and a stable fracture of the C7 vertebra, ending a race the Slovenian had led in the red jersey for seven stages.
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Career-best form, and nobody looking
Gall arrived in Spain on a run few of his rivals could match. He was runner-up at the 2026 Giro d’Italia, and on 8 August he sealed the first general classification victory of his career at the Vuelta a Burgos, 10 seconds clear of Oscar Onley and Giulio Ciccone.
“I gained a lot of confidence this week,” he said after Burgos.
That form has not produced a stage win at the Vuelta, but it has kept him in touch. On the Alto de Aitana in Stage 9, his Decathlon team drove the pace on the final climb, before Mas jumped clear with about 3km to go. Gall crossed fourth on the day and lost 18 seconds, conceding further ground to the new race leader.
The next test is Calar Alto
Stage 11 on Wednesday is a sprinters’ day from Cartagena to Lorca. The general classification is unlikely to shift again until Stage 12 on Thursday, which runs 166.6 kilometres from Vera to the Calar Alto Observatory and finishes with a first-category climb of 16.9km at 5.6%.
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Beyond Calar Alto, the numbers still favour Roglic. The 32-kilometre flat time trial to Jerez de la Frontera on Stage 18 is the sort of course on which the Slovenian, a three-time Vuelta champion, routinely puts a minute into pure climbers. Gall needs a buffer before he gets there.
That is why Calar Alto matters more to him than to Mas or Roglic. If the pair mark each other while he attacks, 1:39 stops being a gap and starts looking like a head start. Sierra Nevada on Stage 20 is the last summit finish of the race.
The peloton rolls out of Vera on Thursday, 3 September, for the first of the last week’s mountain days.
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