In the first summit finish of the Vuelta a España, Slovenian star Primos Roglic comfortably held off defeat on the climbs against new race leader Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana), and his bid for his first Grand Tour win was firmly on track.

After Astana and EF Education First set the pace on the high slopes of Habalambre on stage 5, Roglic was able to respond to a fierce attack by Alejandro Valverde with 5km to go.

Logrich was unable to keep up with the acceleration of Lopez, who soon followed, but only lost 12 seconds to the Colombian climber on this stage and worked well with Valverde to limit the gap.

With the support of Jumbo-Visma, including teammate Sepp Kuss, Lopez's consistent performance in the mountains helped him move up four places in the overall standings, pushing Nairo Quintana (Movistar) out of second place on GC.

Roglic, who is only 14 seconds behind Lopez in the overall standings, briefly expressed his satisfaction with his performance to reporters after being given a whistle to put on his winter gear and make the 11km journey back to the Jumbo-Visma team bus after the finish.

"It wasn't that hard, and I'm glad I finished the run," he said. I got off to a good start."

"Sepp ran great, so much so that I had to ask him to slow down a bit. He's still young, but it was a great run. The whole team did well."

"I wasn't surprised by Valverde's performance. He won the Vuelta 10 years ago and is still flying. Valverde won the Vuelta 10 years ago and he's still flying. [Kuss, who is taking his second Grand Tour this season, told reporters after the race. It took me a while to get into the rhythm of the race in the first few stages, but today I felt good."

"I struggled a bit in the Giro, but I came out of it feeling good, and I think that will help me in races like this later in the season."

Kuss admitted that losing Kruijswijk, who retired on stage 4 with a knee injury, was "big. You might have thought he was tired after the Tour, but in fact Steve got stronger as the race went on. He would have been huge for us, but honestly, we could see how much his knee was hurting. It's a shame to lose him."

Overall analyzing the Vuelta's first major incursion into the mountains, Kuss said, "It was interesting. No one wanted to take control before the final climb, but there will be more hard climbs in the coming days."

Roglic put in a solid performance, confirming that his injuries from the first stage are healing. For both the Slovenian and Jumbo Visma, the road to Madrid is long.