Vingegaard launches his first offensive in La Vuelta but Torstein Træen manages to save the leadership

The Vuelta 2025 arrived at the Valdezcaray ski station, another of those mythical peaks in the editions of the 80s but that had been forgotten for years. A gradual ascent except for the initial kilometers but, given the superiority of Jonas Vingegaard, it was enough to make a good impact on the classification.

Jonas Vingegaard's show of authority at the top of Valdezcaray

Stage 9 of La Vuelta 2025, a day that had the lands of La Rioja as protagonists in a single-port format route that led the peloton from Alfaro to the Valdezcaray ski station, in the heart of the Sierra de la Demanda with 195 kilometers between both points.

A stage that started, today, with an intense fight to catch the breakaway to the extreme that it had to wait for more than 50 kilometers until the definitive breakaway was consolidated, which in today's stage included Michel Hessmann, Kwiatkowski, Archie Ryan, Kevin Vermaerke, and Liam Slock, knowing that their adventure was not going anywhere since the peloton, led half by the Bahrain-Victorious of leader Torstein Træen and half by the Lidl-Trek, presumably trying to toughen the stage in favor of Giulio Ciccone.

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A day in which the feared wind that could cause havoc in the approach to the Sierra de la Demanda did not appear, but the stormy showers did, at certain moments of the stage, which pounded a peloton in which there have already been a significant number of withdrawals due to illness.

With nothing remarkable, they reached the beginning of the climb, where the escapees were caught. The Lidl-Trek started the ascent setting the pace until, after the first kilometer of climbing, with more than 11 kilometers to go to the finish line, they started violently, catching the entire peloton by surprise, with Matteo Jorgenson leading Jonas Vingegaard. Only Giulio Ciccone could stick with them.

This attack continued with a strong attack by Jonas Vingegaard trying to take advantage of the initial part of the climb, the only one with remarkable difficulty since the final kilometers are little more than a false flat. Initially, Giulio Ciccone managed to hold on, but with a look that suggested he didn't have much left in his legs.

Vingegaard continued his offensive with a relentless pace that, a kilometer later, made Giulio Ciccone explode. Meanwhile, behind, a lonely Joao Almeida, with Marc Soler unable to withstand the initial attack of the Visma-Lease a Bike and with Juan Ayuso also absent after voluntarily cutting himself off even before the start of the climb, had no choice but to set the relentless pace that the Portuguese is capable of and try to minimize the losses.

 

 

 

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Tom Pidcock and Felix Gall joined Almeida's wheel, although he couldn't get help from them due to the high pace he was setting. In fact, Gall would fall back and Pidcock would hold on with a look of "I have enough to be here." The leader of UAE Team Emirates-XRG had Jonas Vingegaard just 8 seconds behind, but as is often the case in cycling, when you push so hard and can't close the gap, the rubber breaks. That was the turning point, with the gap increasing again to over 20 seconds until the finish line.

Behind, a chasing group was formed, also losing time beyond a minute, with a clearly affected Ciccone seeing many of his winning options slip away, and others like Bernal or Pellizari trying to salvage the situation. Meanwhile, the leader of La Vuelta, Torstein Træen, who seemed to be losing the lead when the gap with Vingegaard increased to 2 minutes, managed his strength excellently to enter this group and comfortably save the red jersey.

In any case, an important blow by Jonas Vingegaard in a climb of very little significance and, as he confessed in statements after the stage, completely improvised at the foot of the climb when he felt he had good legs and asked Jorgenson to launch the acceleration that broke the race.

Stage 9 Classification

1. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) 4h32'10''
2. Thomas Pidcock (Q36.5) +24''
3. Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +24''
4. Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) +1'02''
5. Raúl García Pierna (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) +1'46''
6. Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +1'46''
7. Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) +1'46''
8. Markel Beloki (EF Education-EasyPost) +1'46''
9. Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +1'46''
10. Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana) +1'46''

General Classification

1. Torstein Træen (Bahrain-Victorious) 33h35'46''
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +37''
3. Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +1'15''
4. Thomas Pidcock (Q36.5) +1'35''
5. Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) +2'14''
6. Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) +2'42''
7. Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS-Astana) +2'47''
8. Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) +2'49''
9. Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +2'53''
10. Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +2'53''