Primoz Roglic defended his title and won the 2021 La Vuelta a Espana tour, making it the third time he has won the Spanish tour.
Primoz Roglic has now won the La Vuelta three times after winning the 2021 La Vuelta a Espana after the final stage on 5 September 2021.
The final stage was an individual time trial from Padron to Santiago de Compostela with a distance of 33.8 kilometers.
Roglic had already cemented his lead in the overall standings in terms of how much time he had over the other riders in the general classification.
Most of the riders riding in the final stage to gain time were trying to jostle for minor podium placings.
Primoz Roglic bookends the Spanish tour with wins
Roglic bookended the entire 2021 La Vuelta a Espana tour quite neatly, winning the first stage, also an individual time trial, fresh after winning the time trial event at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, as well as winning the final individual time trial stage on Sunday.
Roglic won four stages throughout the whole race as the overall lead jumped from rider to rider and team to team, before ending up back with Roglic on Stage 17.
He ended up sealing his overall victory of the race with a historic margin time over the other riders of 4 minutes and 42 seconds.
2021 La Vuelta a Espana classification standings
Enric Mas was second place in the overall classification standings and Jack Haig became the first Australian in 12 years after Cadel Evans to take the third spot on the podium.
Magnus Cort Neilsen was given the most combative rider title after three stage wins throughout the tour.
Fabio Jakobsen took the win for the sprint points category and Australian Michael Storer took the mountain climbing classification win.
Gino Mader took the best young rider win away from Egan Bernal on Stage 17 and kept it to win it overall.
Team Bahrain Victorious took out the teams’ classification win.
Meanwhile, Fabio Aru from Team Qhubeka NextHash announced his retirement from cycling after he finished his run on the stage.
The cycling has not ended for the year, however.
In mid-September, both the Eschborn-Frankfurt race and the UCI World Championships start on 19 September.
In October, the much-awaited, and postponed from April due to COVID-19, Paris-Roubaix race will be held with a lot of interest to see how riders fare on the cobblestones/pave after what has been a very taxing and grueling year in cycling.