Spain's Pablo Castrillo emerged from the fog to cross the line at the top of the daunting Cuitu Negru climb and take Stage 15 of the Vuelta a España 2024 on Sunday, while Primoz Roglic took more time out of Ben O'Connor's overall lead.

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The 23-year Castrillo (Kern Pharma team) already had won Thursday's 12th stage, but this was the biggest victory of his young career.

He set off three kilometers from the finish and soloed to victory in the fog, holding off the late challenge of Roglic's Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammate Aleksandr Vlasov.

"It's something I couldn't even dream of," said Castrillo, stunned by the victory. "I didn't think it was possible to achieve this (two wins) in this Vuelta."

After a punishing 143 kilometers of road and mountain, which included the Alto de Santo Emiliano and a double ascent of the Alto de la Colladiella, as well as that vicious final climb, Roglic followed the young Spaniard across the line in fifth place, over a minute behind.

More significantly, the Slovenian clawed back another 38 seconds from O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) to reduce the Australian's overall lead to just 43 seconds, with the race heads into its final week.

O'Connor, however, who had a lead of nearly five minutes after winning Stage 6, remained upbeat about his chances of landing a first Grand Tour win.

"Yeah, it's optimistic today," O'Connor said. "But I guess I've proven those people wrong (who) thought I'd lose the jersey. I had a pretty good day.

"It's a bit of a shame that I exploded a bit at the end, but that's got to be probably one of the most horrible endings to a climb I've ever done. It was really disgusting.

"It was kind of only one attack, and that was Primoz, who was super impressive. Then it was very much man against man. You just felt like you were going nowhere, and you couldn't see anything with the fog as well. It was rough."

The riders have a rest day Monday, before setting off on Stage 16, a 181-kilometer route from Luanco on the Asturian coast to the iconic ascent to the Lakes of Covadonga, which takes in two intermediate climbs.

Primoz Roglic Penalized In Stage 15 Of Vuelta a España 2024

Primoz Roglic faced a 20-second time penalty for taking an illegal tow behind his team car during a bike change in the 2024 Vuelta a España.  

Despite the setback, Roglic launched a fierce attack on the 24% gradients of the Cuitu Negru climb in Stage 15, targeting race leader Ben O'Connor.  

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