Jonas Vingegaard cleared the last major hurdle in his quest to win a first Vuelta a España title when he won the critical mountain stage to the Bola del Mundo summit. The Visma-Lease a Bike rider finished 11 seconds clear of teammate Sepp Kuss to extend his overall advantage on main rival João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) to a minute and 16 seconds ahead of Sunday's final stage into Madrid.
Having first tracked rival João Almeida on the early pitches of the super steep concrete road that rose sharply towards the TV masts at the finish, Vingegaard then followed an attack by Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe). With 1,200 very acute metres remaining, Vingegaard made his move, accelerating past the Australian and immediately getting a gap on the other GC favorites.
Although fatigue was evident as the Dane almost collided with the barriers approaching the line, he maintained a clear advantage, the victory also giving him a useful 10-second bonus, boosting his GC cushion a little more.
Hindley took third, but was only just ahead of Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who retained third and second place on GC, respectively.
Vingegaard said post-stage that he'd been hoping to take victory at Bola del Mundo after missing out on prestigious successes in recent days. "I wanted to win in Bilbao and I wanted to win on Angliru, but Bola del Mundo is also very special one," the Dane said.
"I wouldn't say that I was feeling comfortable in the pace that João and then Jai were doing, but at least I felt like that I was not on my limit," he added. "So I felt that I had a good chance of winning the stage.
"At one point I just decided that I was going to try. Then I immediately got a gap. The last few hundred metres were incredibly hard, and I almost went into the barrier – a small mistake on my part," he said.
"I'm super happy with how things went for me today and how the team has done in the last three weeks. The team has been so amazing. I couldn't have done it without them."
While Vingegaard admitted that the sickness that had hampered him in recent days had eased, Almeida confessed that he hadn't been at his best and wasn't in the condition that he needed to be in order to unseat Vingegaard from top spot.
"We had to try today, we had nothing to lose," he said of the huge effort made by his UAE team. "The idea was to make it as fast as we could, to make the stage as hard as we could. Unfortunately, I've been sick this week, so the feeling was not the best. But we still tried and I think that's what matters. Congrats to Jonas. He was super strong, and I think it’s not too bad being behind him."
In addition to Vingegaard and the other podium finishers, the day's other big winner was American Matthew Riccitello (Israel-PremierTech), who took the white jersey of best young rider after its previous holder Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) was dropped early on the final climb.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The inevitable flurry of attacks from the start saw the Ineos Grenadiers in the thick of the action, with the British team’s riders determined to launch Egan Bernal into the breakaway. They managed this on the early slopes of the opening third-category climb, but the attacks kept coming from behind and the Colombian was soon reeled in.
Santi Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) led over that climb and was joined by an increasing number of riders beyond it, including Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AlUla), Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step) and Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek). Having missed that move, Bernal attacked out of the peloton and joined the leaders on the second third-cat climb, the Puerto de la Paradilla.
Eventually, 35 riders came together at the front, although UAE weren’t keen to allow them much of a lead. Lidl-Trek had a quartet up front, and Carlos Verona, Mads Pedersen and Julien Bernard set about doing all they could to provide their climber Ciccone with a potential stage-winning advantage.
On the third climb, the second-category Alto del León, the break’s lead reached a maximum of one minute 30 seconds, as Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe pitched in to help UAE with the pace-making in the bunch. Next up was the first passage over the Alto de Navacerrada, a first-category test for this initial ascent of the climb that's also the launch pad for the super-category Bola del Mundo.
As Lidl-Trek continued to press, the break splintered quickly. There were only a dozen riders at the front cresting the Navacerrada, where the gap to the peloton had been reduced to 1-05. On the descent, Ciccone, Landa, Bernal, Bruno Amirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Jardi van der Lee (EF Education-EasyPost) went clear.
After the race had previously been diverted to avoid pro-Palestinian protesters gathered in the town of Cerdedilla, demonstrators almost brought the race to a half with 19km remaining by blocking the road just ahead of the break. The five riders managed to swerve around the demonstrators and soon after the red jersey group picked its way along the side of the road too, shelter of race organisation and team cars, although two Movistar riders appeared to be halted briefly.
Landa had just attacked from the lead group when the protest occurred, and the Spanish climber managed to hold his lead until Ciccone and Bernal bridged back up to him. With 11km remaining, Ciccone accelerated away from his two rivals, with the peloton still 1-10 back.
Landa was done yet, though, and eventually clawed his way back up to the Italian, the pair then collaborating in an attempt to keep the peloton at bay the second time up the Navacerrada pass.
Back in the red jersey group, the pace set by UAE proved too much for fifth-placed and best young rider Pellizzari, who dropped off the pace with 7km to the finish. Seventh-placed Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) was the next victim moments later.
With 5km to the line, Ciccone and Landa had a cushion of just 25 seconds on the UAE-led red jersey group. They were caught as they swung right onto the final 3km of steep concrete road up to the finish, where Almeida came out of the slipstream of his teammates to make a final attempt to wrest the red jersey from the shoulders of Vingegaard.
Two kilometres from the top, Hindley went to the front, his acceleration troubling Pidcock and Riccitello. The Australian briefly went clear, with Vingegaard tracking him closely, but Almeida dieseled his way back up to the pair, with Pidcock and Kuss on his wheel.
With 1,200 metres left, Vingegaard made his move, surging past Hindley, creating a gap that quickly put the stage win and his first Vuelta title in his sights.
