With one week left to go at the Vuelta a Espana the destiny of the winner’s maillot rojo, and the configuration of the podium, remains up in the air.
The withdrawal of Tadej Pogacar, forced to abandon after breaking his collarbone in a crash in the first week, has blown the race wide open and meant that a surprise name will win the year’s final grand tour.
Enric Mas leads the race by two minutes but all could change in a blockbuster final week featuring an all-important time trial – a discipline Mas has always struggled in – and two more summit finishes, including on the penultimate day of the race.
One of the riders looking to mount a last-week challenge and dislodge home favourite Mas is Britain’s Oscar Onley, who sits fifth ahead of stage 16, 5’44” behind the Spaniard.
The Briton enjoyed a stunning breakthrough year in 2025, finishing fourth at the Tour de France, and is in striking distance of a maiden grand tour podium at the age of just 23, sitting 3’24” off third place as it stands.
Onley grew up in the Scottish Borders town of Kelso and was inspired to start cycling by the fact that the time-trial route for his local club, Kelso Wheelers, went right past his house.
The youngster was soon hooked, and while he could have had a future as an elite cross-country runner, he eventually opted for two wheels instead. He raced in Europe as a junior before joining the development team of Picnic PostNL in 2021.
He made the step up to WorldTour racing in 2023, where he picked up a few top-10s in his debut WorldTour season, including at major stage races the Tour de Romandie and the Criterium du Dauphine.
His Grand Tour debut however didn’t go to plan. The youngster was part of DSM-Firmenich’s win in the team time trial on stage one of the 2023 Vuelta a Espana, but he crashed and broke his collarbone on stage two and was forced to abandon the race.
But 2024 was to prove a standout year. He kicked it off in style with his first professional win at the Tour Down Under, the season-opening stage race in Australia, on the famous Willunga Hill climb, and finished fourth overall.
He finished second overall at the Tour of Britain, winning the best young rider classification, and was the highest-placed British rider in the gruelling World Championships road race in Zurich.
In 2025 he built on those experiences: he was fifth overall at the UAE Tour – won by Pogacar – then ninth at Itzulia Basque Country and third overall at the Tour de Suisse, a phenomenal race in which he took a stage win – beating overall winner Joao Almeida on a mountainous route.
He carried that form into a breakout performance at last year’s Tour de France, recording multiple top-10 finishes on gruelling mountain terrain. While Onley is a pure climber, his seventh place on the mountainous time trial at the Tour indicated that that sort of terrain against the clock also suits him well.
Fourth on his debut Tour was a brilliant result and it was no surprise that he was snapped up by Ineos Grenadiers over the winter, with the British outfit desperate for a real general classification leader and particularly keen to have a home-grown rider in that spot.
Onley’s first year at the team – now known as Netcompany-Ineos – has been decidedly mixed, hampered by a shoulder injury which ruled him out of the Tour de France and a stop-start spring campaign where he was affected by injury and illness.
But he has ridden into the sort of form he was showing at last year’s Tour at exactly the right time.
He was fourth after the first week and has been one of the most consistent climbers in the race. On stage nine, which ended atop the category-one Alto de Aitana, he was the only rider to stick with Mas when the Spaniard attacked and finished second.
The Briton lost time on stage 12 after crashing early on in the 167km stage, slipping to fifth overall and losing two minutes to Mas.
Stage 14 saw him lose another 1’15” in the battle for the red jersey on another summit finish at Sierra de la Pandera, while he leads the best young rider’s standings by just 30 seconds from Slovenian stage 12 winner Jakob Omrzel.
But with an extra day’s rest in his legs the Scot hopes to get himself back into contention for the podium, while finishing in the top five would nonetheless be an excellent result considering the crashes he has endured.
Whether he can stay with Mas and his rivals on the tough mountain stages, 19 and 20, will prove crucial, as will stage 18’s time trial, where Primoz Roglic is expected to gain significant ground on the purer climbers.
“I’m trying to get back to the level that I had this time last week and we’ll see what happens,” he said. “First we just try to recover as best as possible.”
