OFFICIAL Stage 6 Results: Joshua Tarling ABANDONS!

[Laurens De Jong]

Hello, Vuelta a España Gamers!

 

STAGE Grade: B+

 

I rate today’s stage a B+, almost an A. The gravel climb gets my nod of approval (if we have to have a “my grand tour is harder than yours” scenario); there were some GC implications, there wasn’t much in the way of tactics — other than riding as hard as you could. The biggest surprise was Enric Mas catching Tadej Pogačar, and I count the entire valley ride to the finish as a moderately exciting sprint.

 

Route: 3/5         GC: 3/5             Tactics: 2/5       Sprint: 3/5         Surprises: 4/5

 

 

Tadej Pogačar is determined to win every stage in the 2026 Vuelta a España, or at least to be in the leader’s jersey after every stage. That much is clear from stage 6.

 

I kept waiting for Decathlon CMA CGM Team to attack, but they never did. Pogačar’s own UAE Team Emirates – XRG wouldn’t allow it. They rode hard all the way to the Puerto El Bartolo, the hellish and never-ending climb with its two kilometers of gravel. This is where Pogačar was going to make his move.

 

And he did. He attacked as only Pogačar can, everyone was dropped, and they were racing for second place. And that was an interesting race.

 

Pogačar was the fastest man in the peloton. No doubt about it. But what never happens, happened on Thursday. Someone caught up with him on a climb. Nobody saw it coming, least of all Pogačar himself, but Enric Mas came from behind to reach the top of the Bartolo just before Pogačar. Du jamais vu. It remains difficult to impossible to follow a bike race, especially on a climb, where everyone is riding a different pace and is spread out. So I can’t tell you how or when Mas made his remarkable comeback.

 

I can speculate to the how: he didn’t try to keep up with Pogačar. Oscar Onley did, he was the last rider to get dropped. He suffered because of it: twelfth in the stage. Ten riders he and Pogačar dropped at the start of the climb passed him again. Lesson learned by another rider: don’t go into the red trying to keep up with Pogačar.

 

Mas didn’t try to keep up with Pogačar. In fact, he was among the first to get dropped. But he made it back, and of course was beaten by Pogačar in the sprint. Okay.

 

On the way down, so determined was Pogačar to eclipse Lance Armstrong’s legacy that he even copied Armstrong’s 2003 moment in stage 9: on the descent, he misjudged a turn and off-roaded it through the hairpin. He wasn’t the only one, several other riders did that and even a Vuelta official car missed that turn.

 

After the final climb, it was an exciting race to the finish. Mas and Pogačar working together, Felix Gall and Primož Roglič working with early breakaway survivor Ramses Debruyne, and Harold Tejada and Richard Carapaz working to chase them. High speed, full gas, this is what bike racing is all about.

 

Tejada and Carapaz caught the other three, and Debruyne won the sprint for third place. Those are the big winners of stage 6: Mas, Debruyne, Carapaz, Tejada, Gall, Roglič. A terrific race.

 

Lorenzo Fortunato is still trying to win points in the mountains competition. Pogačar is going to win that competition, but if you’re in second place then at least you get to wear the jersey. He only scored three points, second across the Puerto de la Serratella. Later he pulled the plug and dropped out of the breakaway. He finished 119^th, 26 minutes behind Pogačar. No doubt he thought he had done enough, but like everyone else, he hadn’t accounted for Mas. Because Mas put his wheel in front of Pogačar on the Bartolo, he outscored Fortunato by a single point. Despite his name, Fortunato was among the losers of stage 6.

 

Wout van Aert is on a similar mission — second place in the points competition lets you wear the green jersey. He won the intermediate sprint in Benicàssim — by general consent of the group. Briefly past the sprint his family had gathered roadside. Old school, van Aert had time to greet them, secure in the knowledge that he had succeeded in the race for second place.

 

Urko Berrade was the rider in the breakaway for our focus team Equipo Kern Pharma today. Every time I saw him he was in last place, so it’s possible his front wheel was never in fact in first place. The breakaway, except for Debruyne, was unceremoniously caught in the latter phases, no glory for Kern Pharma.

 

Ibon Ruiz saw his moderate general classification ambitions suffer after finishing 33^rd today, more than seven minutes behind. He dropped five places, to 22^nd overall.

 

Watch the final kilometers HERE.

Watch the La Vuelta highlights HERE.

Watch the NBC Extended highlights HERE.

Read the TNT Sports report HERE.

 

Joshua Tarling abandoned the race today. Probably related to the death of his younger brother, in the Volta a Portugal two weeks ago. He would have scored more points for Team Joshua, but now he won’t.

 

Team Ansel won the stage in grand slam fashion: most points from the stage, most points from classifications, most points overall, most riders in the Top-25 (nine). They’re now in third. But they gain only small points on Team Amalia who were second today.

 

Team Hugo and Team Charles were the first chasers. Team Joshua were first of the teams chasing them. They drop to fourth. Team Grace were sixth and Team Tadej were seventh. All those teams were within 80 points of each other, a high-scoring affair for the collective.

 

As long as Tadej Pogačar is determined to win every stage, we have to expect he can win stage 7 on Friday. “My grand tour is harder than yours,” say the Vuelta organizers, and they plot a route across four categorized climbs and then a mountain top finish at the Aramón Valdelinares. The roadbook says it’s 9.8 km at 5.9%, but I see all those sectors over 13% and I’m thinking: it will be another Pogačar kind of day.

 

Standings after stage 6:

 

Rank	Name	Points	WAS	MOVES
1	Team Amalia*	1081	1	0
2	Team Hugo*	1038	2	0
3	Team Ansel*	973	4	1
4	Team Joshua*	922	3	-1
5	Team Charles*	907	5	0
6	Team Tadej*	817	6	0
7	Team Grace*	768	7	0

 

Standings after stage 6 (including adults):

 

Rank	Name	Points	WAS	MOVES
1	Team Kent	1090	1	0
2	Team Sam	1086	2	0
3	Team Amalia*	1081	3	0
4	Team Valerie	1047	5	1
5	Team Jake	1041	6	1
6	Team Hugo*	1038	4	-2
7	Team Charlotte	1015	7	0
8	Team Andrew	977	9	1
9	Team Kurt	975	10	1
10	Team Ansel*	973	13	3
11	Team Amelia Katanski	971	11	0
12	Team Roberto	928	16	4
13	Team Laurens	925	18	5
14	Team Joshua*	922	8	-6
15	Team Corsa	912	11	-4
16	Team Jonwaine	909	17	1
17	Team Charles*	907	14	-3
18	Team Cameron	890	22	4
19	Team Rob	866	21	2
20	Team Melanie	865	15	-5
21	Team Tadej*	817	20	-1
22	Team Craig	808	19	-3
23	Team Grace*	768	24	1
24	Team Julie	754	23	-1
25	Team Doug	751	25	0
26	Team Adam	720	26	0
27	Team Suzanne	606	28	1
28	Team Amelia Bondie	577	27	-1

 

Complete breakdown of points from stage 6:

 

Name	STAGE RESULTS	YELLOW JERSEY	GREEN JERSEY	POLKA DOT JERSEY	WHITE JERSEY	POINTS/CLASS	TOTAL	PREVIOUS	CUM. TOTAL
Team Amalia*	173	51	10	10	5	78	251	830	1081
Team Ansel*	180	51	9	15	5	82	262	711	973
Team Charles*	143	42	12	6	5	67	210	697	907
Team Grace*	131	34	9	8	5	58	189	579	768
Team Hugo*	143	42	13	6	5	68	211	827	1038
Team Joshua*	131	37	12	6	5	62	193	729	922
Team Tadej*	127	32	12	8	1	55	182	635	817

 

Complete breakdown of points from stage 6 (including adults):

 

Name	STAGE RESULTS	YELLOW JERSEY	GREEN JERSEY	POLKA DOT JERSEY	WHITE JERSEY	POINTS/CLASS	TOTAL	PREVIOUS	CUM. TOTAL
Team Adam	151	42	9	12	0	65	216	504	720
Team Amalia*	173	51	10	10	5	78	251	830	1081
Team Amelia Bondie	88	21	9	6	0	38	126	451	577
Team Amelia Katanski	176	51	12	13	5	83	259	712	971
Team Andrew	176	51	12	10	5	80	256	721	977
Team Ansel*	180	51	9	15	5	82	262	711	973
Team Cameron	183	51	9	12	5	79	262	628	890
Team Charles*	143	42	12	6	5	67	210	697	907
Team Charlotte	178	51	12	10	8	83	261	754	1015
Team Corsa	139	38	13	8	0	61	200	712	912
Team Craig	115	35	9	6	5	57	172	636	808
Team Doug	140	39	9	10	0	60	200	551	751
Team Grace*	131	34	9	8	5	58	189	579	768
Team Hugo*	143	42	13	6	5	68	211	827	1038
Team Jake	183	51	12	12	6	83	266	775	1041
Team Jonwaine	173	51	10	10	6	79	252	657	909
Team Joshua*	131	37	12	6	5	62	193	729	922
Team Julie	117	36	9	9	0	56	173	581	754
Team Kent	176	51	12	10	5	80	256	834	1090
Team Kurt	176	51	12	10	5	80	256	719	975
Team Laurens	205	52	9	12	5	80	285	640	925
Team Melanie	127	34	12	9	5	62	189	676	865
Team Rob	164	43	9	12	5	71	235	631	866
Team Roberto	176	51	8	13	5	79	255	673	928
Team Sam	173	51	12	10	5	80	253	833	1086
Team Suzanne	120	25	9	5	1	42	162	444	606
Team Tadej*	127	32	12	8	1	55	182	635	817
Team Valerie	163	46	14	10	8	80	243	804	1047

 

¡Viva la Vuelta!

 

-Laurens.