Three things to look out for in Week Three at Vuelta a Espana
Will Remco crack?
After an imperious first week where Evenepoel looked unstoppable, chinks in the armour started to show in the second week of the Vuelta. Despite taking time on the time trial, which was to be expected, he lost ground on the two toughest stages of the week - the summit finishes on stage 12 and 15.
Before those days, he sat two minutes and 41 seconds in front of closest rival Primoz Roglic (32), who is searching for his fourth-straight overall victory in the race, but on the second rest day, that difference stood at 94 seconds.
The Belgian climber has done well to limit his losses so far and the second week was the hardest of the race, but there are still opportunities for Roglic to make more time back.
Three of the final six stages have summit finishes and Roglic has the stronger team, meaning he can try to isolate Evenepoel early on in the stages in his hunt for the red leader's jersey.
But, can he crack Remco? The lightweight Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl rider has shown that he is capable of riding within himself to keep the time gaps as small as possible, but he has never gone this deep in a grand tour before. Roglic, however, has and that experience could tell over the coming days. We are set for a thrilling battle before the race reaches Madrid.
Hunting for stages
The remaining six stages have plenty of opportunities for climbers to get a stage win from the breakaway. Quick-Step - with their weaker team - have struggled to control the breakaway and large groups have gone away in the mountains so far in this race.
Richard Carapaz (29) and Jay Vine (26) have both won two stages each from the break and many other riders and teams will be targeting the last week for wins. With that in mind, each but two days could go to the break, so expect explosive racing in the early stages of each day.
Candidates for victories include Marc Soler (28), 2022 Giro D'Italia winner Jai Hindley (26), Hugh Carthy (28), Vincenzo Nibali (37) and for those who believe in fairytales, Alejandro Valverde (42), riding his final Vuelta of his career.
Mas or less?
The curious case of Enric Mas (27) will have an end come Sunday in Madrid. The Movistar rider has finished on the podium twice in this race before, but has been criticised for his defensive riding in what many see as his pragmatic attempt at making gains on the field.
In this Vuelta, he has attacked. On stage five, he was the only one who could go with Evenepoel as Vine won the summit finish and on stage 15, he attacked to follow Miguel Angel Lopez when the race headed up to the Sierra Nevada.
This attacking style is different for Mas and he deserves credit for trying to take the race to riders who have been better on those longer climbs, making himself vulnerable to losing more time overall.
It's unlikely that Mas will change his approach, given he is two minutes back on Evenepoel in third place overall and has a near three-minute buffer on fourth-placed Juan Ayuso (19). It's unlikely he will take enough time to win the race, but hopefully, the Spaniard has honoured the race enough to allay some of his critics.
