Stage 9 was by no means the hardest mountain stage of the Vuelta a España, nor was the finishing climb a typically vicious finale, but Jonas Vingegaard felt good, so he dispatched his Visma-Lease a Bike teammates to set up an attempt at stage victory from the foot of the ascent.
After an acceleration from Matteo Jorgenson, Vingegaard launched 11 km from the line, briefly taking Giulio Ciccone with him, until the Italian fell away just before the 10km-to-go banner. João Almeida and Tom Pidcock were the strongest in the chase, but their gap soon began to stretch, and Vingegaard won the stage by 24 seconds. Pidcock snatched second on the line as Almeida hung his head in disappointment.
Torstein Træen came home in the first large chase group 1:46 down, meaning the Norwegian retains a 37-second lead as the Vuelta heads into the first rest day.
[race_result id=23 stage_id=86353 count=10 gc=0 year=2025]
[race_result id=23 stage_id=86353 count=10 gc=10 year=2025]
How it happened
- The last stage before the first rest day of the Vuelta proved more tempting than most so far, with the first hour drawing out formations of all shapes and sizes until a five-man move comprising Michel Hessmann (Movistar), Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers), Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost), Kevin Vermaeke (Picnic-PostNL) and Liam Slock (Lotto) formed off the front. With his eyes on the late intermediate sprint, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) tried to sneak across the gap not long after, taking Sander De Pestel (Decathlon-AG2R), but 1:40 was ambitious, and Pedersen ended up saving his matches for another day.
- Lidl-Trek and Q36.5 did the lion’s share of the pulling once the stage settled into its familiar formula, laying their cards out for Giulio Ciccone and Tom Pidcock, both of whom seemed particularly well suited to the unusual final climb.
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