Roglic reigns in Spain with record-equalling fourth Vuelta title

MADRID :Slovenia's Primoz Roglic sealed a record-equalling fourth Vuelta a Espana title on Sunday after retaining his overall lead in the final stage of the race, a 24.6 km individual time-trial in Madrid which was won by Stefan Kung.

Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe's Roglic reclaimed the red jersey from Australian Ben O'Connor with a devastating solo attack on stage 19 on Friday and the Slovenian rider never looked back as he equalled Spaniard Roberto Heras's record of four Vuelta wins.

When Roglic crossed the line, he pointed a finger to the sky and smiled as he finished with an overall lead of two minutes and 36 seconds over O'Connor while Spaniard Enric Mas of Movistar was third.

"It is just a lot of sacrificing, it's not only me," Roglic said. "My family, everyone around me - we all sacrifice, we all live for it. I just feel happy actually that I could do it and I really appreciate the support.

"The more you get to the end (of the Tour), you just want to finish it off and it was tough. But everything went fine, I was fast, so I'm happy."

Victory was all the more special for Roglic who was forced to abandon the Tour de France ahead of stage 13 after the yellow jersey contender crashed twice in consecutive stages.

Roglic, who won three consecutive Vueltas from 2019, came into this year's race as the clear favourite, with Giro d'Italia and Tour de France winner Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard and Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel opting not to ride in Spain.

However, he was surprised by O'Connor when the Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale rider took the red jersey from him on stage six and opened up a gap of nearly five minutes.

But Roglic, nicknamed the 'Slovenian Dream Crusher', slowly clawed his way back and put one hand on the title in