LA PANDERA: German Marco Brenner fought off Santiago Buitrago to claim a mountaintop victory from a long-range breakaway on stage 14 of the Vuelta a Espana on Saturday.
Overall leader Enric Mas extended his lead as he finished 25 seconds ahead of veteran four-time Vuelta winner Primoz Roglic, who slipped from second to third overall behind Felix Gall.
Mas leads Gall by 2min 06sec with Roglic just four seconds back.
Spain’s Carlos Rodriguez finished the stage third at the end of the 154.5km ride from Jaen to La Pandera and climbed into the top 10 overall. A large early breakaway established a gap of more than seven minutes on the peloton, including Mas. With around 52km remaining, Kevin Vermaerke attacked to take a solo lead, which the American maintained until Georg Steinhauser caught him with 15km left.
The German left Vermaerke behind as he began the final climb up the Sierra de la Pandera as weekend crowds cheered on the riders.
Guillaume Martin came across to join Steinhauser, followed by Mario Aparicio, opening up a gap of nearly a minute on the rest of the break.
Buitrago and Brenner caught them with just over three kilometres remaining before forging ahead.
Buitrago attacked first but Brenner came past him to claim victory.
Further down the slope, the red jersey-wearing Mas and Gall dropped Roglic and Richard Carapaz in the general classification battle. Roglic finished 25 seconds behind Mas and Gall, with Ecuadorian Carapaz, fourth overall, a further six seconds back.
Tadej Pogacar was leading the race until a crash on stage eight forced him to abandon his bid to win a first Vuelta and become only the ninth man to complete the full set of Grand Tours. He underwent surgery on a fractured collarbone and confirmed on Saturday that his season was over.
Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2026
