Vingegaard certifies his victory in La Vuelta 2025 with a stage win

As expected, as usually happens when stages end in impossible ramps. Minimal differences between the favorites at the finish line, which translates into Jonas Vingegaard making a script come true that seemed written before the race began, and he does it in a big way, being able to drop his rivals and claim his third partial victory and the overall classification of La Vuelta 2025.

Vingegaard's victory in La Vuelta, Pidcock resists on the podium and Riccitello takes the best young rider jersey in extremis

There were no surprises in the traditional stage of the Sierra de Guadarrama in La Vuelta, which this time started in the town of Robledo de Chavela and passed through the Sierra Oeste, first through the province of Ávila, climbing the beautiful Escondida pass, and then returning to the Community of Madrid through the Paradilla pass.

After this, the race headed to one of La Vuelta's classics, the Alto de León, to continue through the Segovian side to the foot of the Puerto de Navacerrada by its known face as Las 7 Revueltas. From there, a descent towards Cercedilla to make a small loop and ascend the Madrid side and continue to the Cerro de las Guarramillas, popularly known as La Bola del Mundo.

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The stage started, as it could not be otherwise, being the last opportunity to achieve a stage victory for many, with many attacks and, in fact, when La Escondida was crowned, the race was completely broken with many small groups. These groups would merge in the transition terrain until the beginning of the Paradilla where the day's breakaway was consolidated with 37 units and names like Buitrago, Bernal, Armirail, Ciccone, Landa, Jungels, Carlos Canal, Verona, Kung, Brandon Rivera, Pedersen among them.

From here, the race entered a waiting mode where the most relevant thing was the strong pace set by UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe to make the stage as tough as possible and have a chance to overthrow Vingegaard in the case of Almeida and Pidcock by Hindley. This caused the breakaway to never have a sufficient lead to think about victory, although they continued pushing ahead with the hope that the peloton would slow down at some point.

In the first ascent to Navacerrada, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG took the lead even more vigorously, decimating the main group, and in fact, the escapees crowned the pass with barely a minute's advantage.

Incidents returned in the descent with protests against Israel, which blocked the passage through the town of Cercedilla, where the Intermediate Sprint was located. The organization reacted quickly to choose another road option in the area. However, tension increased as they approached the town of Becerril de la Sierra, where a small group managed to block the road after the escapees passed, leading to a complicated situation when the peloton found a way through the side of an island and some protesters tried to stop them at all costs.

By that time, the breakaway had been reduced to just 5 cyclists: Bernal, Armirail, Ciccone, Landa, and Van der Lee. Taking advantage of this chaos, Mikel Landa started to make a desperate move, to which only Bernal and Ciccone could respond, catching up with him at the beginning of the final ascent towards the Puerto de Navacerrada.

Bernal quickly fell behind, and after some back and forth between Ciccone and Landa, they decided to collaborate. However, behind them, UAE Team Emirates-XRG burned their last ships with a pace that even made Giulio Pellizzari give up, leaving the best young rider classification to Matthew Riccitello.

Landa and Ciccone managed to crown Navacerrada with just a few seconds of advantage, but at the beginning of La Bola del Mundo, with Jay Vine's final push, they were caught. Joao Almeida then took the lead, trying to repeat the tactic of Angliru, but the end of La Vuelta weighs on the legs and did not seem to intimidate Vingegaard at any time, with Sepp Kuss, Jai Hindley, and Tom Pidcock as exceptional spectators.

Jai Hindley also tried a timid move to drop Pidcock, but the British rider has learned to suffer on the climbs throughout this edition of La Vuelta and managed to hold on to the podium.

Finally, as usually happens on these inhuman ramped climbs, the strongest rider ends up prevailing, and the strongest rider usually coincides with the one who occupies, precisely for that reason, the highest place in the general classification. It only took a timid acceleration for Jonas Vingegaard to distance himself a few meters ahead, allowing him not only to secure his victory in La Vuelta but also to add another stage victory to his record, finishing just 11 seconds ahead of his rivals, where Sepp Kuss confirmed the dominance of Visma-Lease a Bike by crossing the finish line in second place.

Stage 20 Classification

1. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) 3h56'23''
2. Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) +11''
3. Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +13''
4. Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) +18''
5. Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +22''
6. Matthew Riccitello (Israel-PremierTech) +24''
7. Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +47''
8. Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) +1'11''
9. Junior Lecerf (Soudal-QuickStep) +1'22''
10. Finlay Pickerin (Bahrain-Victorious) +1'30''

General Classification

1. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) 72h52'57''
2. Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +1'16''
3. Thomas Pidcock (Q36.5) +3'11''
4. Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +3'41''
5. Matthew Riccitello (Israel-PremierTech) +5'55''
6. Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +7'23''
7. Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) +7'45''
8. Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) +7'50''
9. Torstein Træen (Bahrain-Victorious) +9'48''
10. Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) +12'16''