Richard Calapaz (Ineos Grenadiers), who dropped out of the leader's jersey at the Vuelta a España, gave a short but succinct explanation after stage 10 when, in theory, no one expected the GC hierarchy to change at all.

"The best rider won," was his analysis of how Primoš Roglic (Jumbo Visma) overhauled him with a few meters to go in stage 10, opening a seemingly unimportant gap of 3 seconds to the finish for the victorious Slovenian.

But at the end of the day - confirmed only after 20 minutes of deliberation by the race commissaire - this one minute difference mattered. Quite a bit.

Combined with the 10-second time bonus for first place and the 3-second gap, Roglic and Calapaz were tied on time, and La Roja was on a knife-edge between the two. But as a tie-breaker, after the previous stage standings were taken into account, suddenly there was only one leader at this point in the Vuelta competition, as Roglic had won three stages.

The sudden loss of the jersey--so much so that the customary post-stage warm-down was held in the winner's podium area--was certainly not an easy blow. But despite such a painful setback, Kalapas put on a brave face.

"The stage looked like it was going to be a calm one, but the final was very tense.

"A lot of teams were going for [a good finish], including us. It was a very explosive finale and the team did a great job.

In the roller-coaster final kilometers, Calapaz was kept near the front by Andrei Amador, the all-purpose domestique of the Vuelta.

The Ecuadorian then leaped to the front, perhaps remembering his victory in the first week of the Giro d'Italia last year on a similarly short but steady uphill finale.

But his strength waned in the last few hundred meters, just enough to hold onto a top-20 stage position, but just barely enough to prevent Roglic from opening a late gap.

The race continued. For Calapaz, the weekend's double header of mountain stages is surely the best chance to take La Roja back from Roglic before next Tuesday's crucial time trial.

"Tomorrow and the day after are very decisive, let's see what happens," Carapaz concluded. Carapas concluded, "Tomorrow and the day after are very crucial, let's see what happens."