{"id":81362,"date":"2026-09-05T21:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T21:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/81362\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T21:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T21:00:12","slug":"mas-boosts-spanish-vuelta-lead-as-organizers-shorten-next-stage-due-to-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/81362\/","title":{"rendered":"Mas boosts Spanish Vuelta lead as organizers shorten next stage due to heat"},"content":{"rendered":"

SIERRA DE LA PANDERA, Spain (AP) \u2014 Enric Mas added to his lead of the Spanish Vuelta on a mountainous 14th stage won by Marco Brenner amid continued hot weather in southern Spain on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Mas tacked some 25 seconds onto his advantage over Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d after dropping the four-time former winner on the final climb and linking up with Ra\u00fal Garc\u00eda from his Movistar team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a perfect strategy from the team,\u201d Mas said. “He (Garc\u00eda) saw that Primoz was dropping, so we went full to the finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

F\u00e9lix Gall crossed with Mas and moved into second place ahead of Rogli\u010d in the general classification. Gall is 2 minutes, 6 seconds behind Mas, with Rogli\u010d falling to 2:10 behind the leader.<\/p>\n

Brenner won the grueling 151.9-kilometer (94.4-mile) stage after he overcame his fellow breakaway riders and edged Santiago Buitrago at the finish. Brenner had time to zip up his Tudor team suit just as he crossed the line in 4 hours, 15 minutes, 9 seconds. It was the 24-year-old German rider\u2019s first win at a Grand Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the best day of my cycling life, but I cannot really believe it yet,” Brenner said. “There\u2019s not many cyclists who achieve a stage win in a Grand Tour, and to add this to my palmares (triumphs) is really amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stage was held in an area just north of Granada<\/a> that was under a heat warning with highs forecast for 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) in Jaen, where the day’s racing started. Riders tackled a pair of category-two climbs as they rode through a landscape of sunbaked olive groves before a final ascent to the category-one Sierra de la Pandera.<\/p>\n

Riders were regularly grabbing water bottles from team helpers and promptly pouring them over their heads or squirting them on teammates.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s stage shortened because of heat<\/p>\n

Race organizers announced they were shortening Sunday\u2019s 15th stage with \u201cthe aim of protecting the health of the riders and ensuring the best possible conditions for the competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hilly stage ending in the city of Cordoba<\/a> will be shortened from 189 to 110 kilometers (117 to 68 miles). The start will also be delayed until later in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

The province of Cordoba is under a level 2 heat warning on Sunday with highs expected of 40C (104F).<\/p>\n

The Tour de France also had a stage shortened because of a heatwave in France in July.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Vuelta is based in southern Spain and without any of its classic mountain finishes in the country\u2019s greener north.<\/p>\n

Mas is one week away from elusive title<\/p>\n

Mas has led the race since Tour champion Tadej Poga\u010dar withdrew following a crash the previous weekend that has ended his season. Now he has one week of racing left at the Vuelta, where he has finished runner-up on three occasions, in 2018, 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n

Mas is trying to become the first Spanish rider to win the home race since Alberto Contador in 2014. <\/p>\n

The key to Mas finally coming out on top will likely rest on him having a big enough lead to withstand Rogli\u010d during a time trial on Stage 18.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See full AP coverage of European sports here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SIERRA DE LA PANDERA, Spain (AP) \u2014 Enric Mas added to his lead of the Spanish Vuelta on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20333,643,12331,30420,17,30249],"class_list":["post-81362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-cordoba","tag-event_recap","tag-granada","tag-laliga-2","tag-spain","tag-summer-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}