Tadej POGACAR. 10 with honors. First, third and first. Four stages, one annulled: the rest is history. Actually, he rewrites it, piece by piece, with meticulous care. Taddeo had never won in any of the three Grand Tours with an attack from so far away. This year he put on a show in the 6th stage of the Tour (finish at Gavarnie-Gèdre) giving sports fans 43 km of solo riding. The previous record dates back to the 2019 Vuelta, when the Slovenian won solo after 39 km on the Plataforma de Gredos (stage 20). The Slovenian is made this way: he can't do normal things. He can't contain his competitive vigor. He's a serial collector of victories, like the Girardengo and Binda, the Coppi and Bartali, the Merckx and Hinault. Yet another number of great class, an athlete who is number one. He never talks about numbers and figures, but numbers and figures now speak for him. Here's the updated accounting: 21st seasonal victory, 129th in his career, 5th at the Vuelta, 37th in the Grand Tours. For today, that should be enough.

Jarno WIDAR. 10. The 20-year-old from Lotto Intermarchè confirms his talent. We know what this young Belgian is made of, and today, in a stage that is anything but straightforward, he takes the victory among the regulars, while waiting to take flight and narrow the gap with that one over there.

Felix GALL. 8. He controls the race, thanks to a team always on point. He deserves credit for always trying. He deserves credit for always being there, confirming he's a great "regular".

Oscar ONLEY. 7.5. The Briton has class and today confirms what good things are said about him. And he's only just beginning.

Sepp KUSS. 6.5. Silent, he stays there with the nobility of the group. Fifth on the stage, fourth overall: but the road is still long.

Enric MAS. 6.5. He doesn't do anything exceptional, but it's already good that today he stays with the best. Third in the general classification.

Primoz ROGLIC. 6.5. He can only improve and he will definitely improve. Today he arrives with tired legs, but no one can pin him down. Meanwhile, behind the Phenomenon, there's him. Phenomenal.

Richard CARAPAZ. 6. He's not the one from the Tour, but he's thinking about the final week. Meanwhile he's 6th in the general classification.

Mattias SKJELMOSE. 5.5. A lot of struggle from the start. In any case, he stays in the top ten: we'll see what happens next.

Harold TEJADA. 4. The first mountain test is one to forget.

Lorenzo FORTUNATO. 7. After the hail, clear skies. After the storm, sunshine. After the illusion of a stage he could have even won (when hell broke loose, Lorenzo was in the breakaway with Mats Wenzel), today he tries to rebuild the conditions to try again. He enters the day's breakaway with Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe), Pablo Castrillo and Raúl García Pierna (Movistar), Wout Van Aert, Bruno Armirail, Matthew Brennan and Ben Tulett (Visma | Lease a Bike), Eddie Dunbar (Pinarello Q36.5) and Alexey Lutsenko (NSN), Simon Dalby (Uno-X Mobility) and Paul Double (Jayco AlUla), Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost) and Mattia Gaffuri, Gijs Leemreize (Picnic PostNL) and Iván Ramiro Sosa (Equipo Kern Pharma). They think: this is a short stage, but tough, Tadej might not even be interested. They're wrong. For the record: Fortunato is second in the climbers' classification. He's 13 points behind Tadej. For now that's fine.

Diego URIARTE. 6. The 24-year-old Equipo Kern Pharma rider is the first of the day to attack. He punches his ticket.

The VUELTA. 4. She has 3 million followers, the Vuelta's marketing should have better evaluated the matter, thought about whether the choice made would have been consistent with the world of sport, particularly cycling. A beautiful girl who feels that way and does nothing to hide it: in fact, her profession is to show off, to embarrass riders and "suiveurs". She is Erola Jons, a Catalan influencer, and she does what she's always done: the influencer thing, hired to produce social media content from behind the scenes of the race. The backstage. Until yesterday she went wherever she wanted, now the organizers have decided to limit her, restricting her range of action: no more podium area, no more paddock and anything else. She can continue her work, but far away from the riders: let's hope she doesn't choose the hotels.