That sense of amazement at the Vuelta at seeing Mas riding alongside Pogacar

We are not accustomed to seeing Tadej Pogačar, having been left on his own, find company again. That’s why, as we approached the summit of Puerto El Bartolo, we watched in amazement as Enric Mas first closed in on, then caught up with, and finally overtook the world champion in the red jersey. And we watched him with even greater amazement because Enric Mas isn’t one of those prodigies who, long before turning professional, had already set their sights on being like Tadej Pogačar. Enric Mas is someone who, by the time the Slovenian arrived in the peloton to shake it up, was already there; he’d already stood on the Vuelta podium (behind Simon Yates, back in 2018) and was aiming to win a Grand Tour. He is already over thirty, and the hope that he might one day be the champion he once was has given way to a solid certainty of consistently strong finishes. Because riders like Enric Mas almost never win. And indeed, today he finished second once again.

Tadej Pogačar won the third stage of this year’s Vuelta 2026. He celebrated once again and proved yet again that he is the strongest. But it had been a while since he had allowed anyone to come so close to matching his talent.

Be careful, however, not to jump to conclusions; even the strongest riders sometimes fail to pace themselves perfectly, and what happened on the climb to the summit of Puerto El Bartolo changes nothing and alters nothing in terms of the stakes in this Vuelta. The rider in the red jersey is the strongest in the race and in the world, and his lead over the others is so substantial that there’s plenty of time for some dancing whilst we wait.

Nothing has really changed. All that remains is the amazement at an unexpected finish, at a two-horse race between the man who was supposed to be out in front and the man we never thought could be out there. An amazement also shared by the man who was always alone in the lead: “I was really surprised; he overtook me like a rocket. I wasn’t expecting it because I’d heard on the radio that I was in the lead with a gap of, I don’t know, 40 seconds over the chasers, and there’d been no mention of Enric,” he said after the finish. A surprise that, if not a welcome one, was at least readily accepted: “I was simply happy to be with him for the last 10 kilometres into the headwind, because I had no water and it was nice to have a travelling companion.”

Enric Mas finished second and will start the next stage in second place in the general classification, aiming for another podium finish in the Vuelta. The Spaniard is no stranger to this: he has finished second three times and third once. And yet Enric Mas was written off; he had gone two years without any significant results and almost four without a victory. Because riders like Enric Mas hardly ever win. At best, they remain a few points behind those celebrating. Fortunately, though, riders like Enric Mas remind us that when you’re sitting on a bike pedalling, you need to be convinced of your own strengths and confident that everything will turn out all right, because, after all, there’s no one else to turn the pedals for you.