La Vuelta 2020 - Primoz Roglic buries Tour demons to strengthen grip on red jersey

A flat decisive 30km time trial capped with a bike change and a steep ramp to the finish – you can forgive Primoz Roglic if he felt just a little bit apprehensive ahead of Tuesday's all-important race against the clock in La Vuelta.

Unlike that fateful day six months ago in the Tour de France, the Slovenian did not start this ITT in the skin-suit of the race leader, but a green one befitting a triple stage winner who had only once finished outside the top 20 in the 12 previous legs of this race.

But the pressure was still on the man for whom it wasn't a question if he would take back la roja for a third spell in the race lead – but by how much.

And yet things did not get off to the best of starts. Perhaps with that nightmare of a climb up La Planche des Belles Filles in the back of his mind, Roglic was cautious on the opening flat segment that spirited the riders west out of Muros and towards the Atlantic coast.

The same could not be said of Hugh Carthy. A few days ago, the 26-year-old from Preston was being laughed at by his manager for his "premature attacking". One win on the legendary Alto de l'Angliru later, and Jonathan Vaughters is suddenly lauding him as possibly becoming the first rider from Lancashire to win the Vuelta (hasn't JV heard of Simon Yates?).

Speaking to Orla Chennaoui, the EF Pro Cycling panjandrum ramped up the mind games ahead of Tuesday's 33.7km time trial to Mirador de Ézaro – no doubt mindful of Roglic's long season, his weary legs and that penultimate-day Tour disappointment.

"Hugh Carthy is a very under-rated TT rider. I think Primoz Roglic and Richard Carapaz have a little bit more to worry about than they might know," Vaughters said during an interview in which he highlighted Roglic's tendency to tail off towards the end of a three-week race.

Still, despite this confidence, Vaughters also tweeted, once Carthy had rolled down the ramp, that the team's "predictive modelling" had put the rangy rouleur 1min 30sec behind his Jumbo-Visma rival at the base of the final climb – a prediction which would have put Carthy more than two minutes down on Roglic in the virtual GC.

But Carthy got off to a flyer, going through the first checkpoint at 12km two seconds quicker than Roglic – a gap which had only swung three seconds in the Slovenian's favour at the second check at 24.5km following a blustery section heading north up the Galician coast.

It was all going to come down to the final climb – and, before it, the bike change.

If there's one thing Roglic must have practised since his Tour implosion, it was swapping a TT machine for a road bike at the foot of a key climb. On La Planche des Belles Filles it was the first piece of a series of equipment malfunctions (capped with that ridiculous yellow aero helmet which perched high and lopsided above his downcast face) that, coupled with Tadej Pogacar's barnstorming ride, handed the yellow jersey over to his compatriot on the penultimate day.

There was going to be no repeat. Where Carthy arrived for the change cautiously, his priority to exit the sequence with no egg on his face, Roglic approached the transition with speed, hopped off, hopped on, and got going again in under eight seconds in pitstop worthy of Formula One, before attacking the early slopes of the climb with an unseated power-surge to combat the double-digit gradient.

A couple of minutes up the road, Carthy, the man who had tamed the maximum 23.5% gradient of the Angliru, was strong – but not the strongest – on the 30% peak of the Mirador de Ézaro, the Lancashire Hotpot showing off the whole gamut of gurns and grimaces as he crossed the line for provisional third place.

Will Barta, in the hot seat, had reason to smile; the 24-year-old American – who led Movistar's Nelson Oliveira by nine seconds at the finish – was just two arrivals away from his first pro win; a win that would put him in the shop window as his hunt for a new contract in 2021 continues.

But Roglic had other plans. The blistering bike change had given him a second wind. He had exorcised his demons from the Vosges – the man who had cracked on a similar course in the Tour was not going to do the same thing in La Vuelta. Instead, his fate was the opposite; by setting the fastest time up the 1.8km climb he assumed the role of Pogacar with a full house – the stage win and the leader's jersey (for a third time in two weeks).

The rider with no career wins was beaten by a single second by a rider with four victories in the past 13 stages. At least Barta will know that he got beaten by the best.

It was the first time trial victory in over a year – since stage 10 of last year's Vuelta – from a rider considered to have been a time trial specialist before be made winning Grand Tours his bread and butter.

"Beautiful, huh? It's nice – it's been a long time since I won a time trial," the 30-year-old said. "I felt strong, surprisingly. I thought I would suffer a lot more but it went quite fine. It was quite good to do it. Everyone says you will take time. But at the start we all start from zero and we all know it's not a nice thing to do a time trial. Luckily today I had the legs and could do a nice time trial."

And it was then straight to the rollers to the man one step closer to defending his Vuelta crown.

Asked what he thought of his time gap over Carapaz – who rode a solid time trial to take seventh place, 49 seconds behind Roglic, having started the day with a 10-second advantage – Roglic remained philosophical.

"Better 39 ahead than 39 behind – we need to keep the focus. The guys are really strong and we will fight for it."

The guys being his Jumbo-Visma team who completely controlled the main pack on the early slopes of the Angliru – most notably the American Sepp Kuss, who gave up his own chances of a possible win over Carthy to help pace his leader and limit his losses.

Roglic will need the likes of Kuss, George Bennett, Dutch duo Lennard Hofstede and Robert Gesink, and the impressive young Dane Jonas Vingegaard, if he wants to keep Carapaz and Carthy at bay.

For while there only remains one more big mountain stage – Saturday's penultimate stage culminating on the Alto de la Covatilla – Roglic, for all his strength in drawing a line under his Tour TT heartbreak, did not take as much time as many expected on Tuesday.

Carapaz and that man Carthy, who is only 47 seconds down on GC and climbing better than he has ever before, will both fancy their chances of causing an upset between now and Madrid. The scene is perfectly set for the final phase of this Vuelta.