Jonas Vingegaard wins atop Col du Tourmalet as Sepp Kuss keeps Vuelta a España lead

Sepp Kuss held onto his Vuelta a España lead as his team-mate Jonas Vingegaard rode away to gain 34 seconds in the general classification and win a brutal mountain stage atop the Col du Tourmalet.

Vingegaard saved his attack until 8km to go on the final climb, by then the GC contenders had one less rival to worry about as Remco Evenepoel had seen his Vuelta title defense crumble on the Col d’Aubisque, and the Dane solo’d to the line.

Behind him race leader Sepp Kuss and their team-mate Primož Roglič left the remaining GC contenders in their dust to give the Dutch squad a startling complete podium on the day and put them onto the overall podium too. 

The race is led by Kuss, with Roglič  second and Vingegaard third.

Jumbo-Visma now have near total dominance of the Vuelta with their nearest rival being Juan Ayuso 2-37 off the red jersey and just under a minute off the podium.

Vingegaard also now has the polka-dot king of the mountains jersey 

At the finish and emotional Vingegaard said: “I couldn’t choose a better day its the birthday of my daughter and I wanted to win for her so badly. I’m so happy. Today I did it for her."

When asked about the team's dominance he said: “I think one, two, three on the stage and GC is even better than the plan [at the start of the day].”

At the start of the stage no early break was able to establish itself and the first big moment of action on the relatively short mountain stage was Remco Evenepoel dropping off the back of the GC group with 90km left to go. 

His team amassed around him on the slopes of the Col d’Aubisque but he was soon well over a minute and a half in arrears of the main GC group as Jumbo set pace over the top of the mountain.

On the descent four riders, comprising the race leader Sepp Kuss and his Jumbo-Visma team-mate Jonas Vingegaard alongside Mikkel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) and his team-mate Damiano Caruso, went clear and when the main GC group hit the Col de Spandelles is quickly splintered with Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), who was already very far out of touch on GC, among those to go out the back.

Although they were eventually brought to heal Landa once again pushed on with Jumbo-Visma’s three leaders in tow before Vingegaard went on the attack and Landa marked him.

All was quiet until Vingegaard attacked with 8km to go to the top of the Tourmalet. Enric Mas (Movistar) and Juan Ayuso (UAE Emirates) tried to bridge across to him, Roglič  and Kuss in their wheels, but they couldn’t do it immediately.

At 5.5km to go Enric Mas accelerated out of the group and got a gap. Kuss jumped across and as Ayuso began to slowly peg the pair back Kuss then counter attacked with 4km left to ride in an attempt to make his way back up to his team-mate, who was around 30 seconds up the road by this point but Mas shut him down.

As Vingegaard pushed on out front the chasing group reformed until Kuss put in a startling acceleration just ahead of the flamme rouge to claim second on the day and minimise his losses to his team-mate.

Shortly after Roglič too distanced Jumbo’s GC rivals and was nearly in Kuss’s wheel at the line.