Joao Almeida won the Vuelta a España stage on the Angliru. The Portuguese rider from UAE Emirates XRG rider gave everything he had to shake off GC leader Jonas Vingegaard, but he didn’t succeed. Still, he earned a nice consolation prize with the stage victory.
Rarely have we seen Jonas Vingegaard approach a stage with so much ambition as this one. The GC leader spoke of a very special finish waiting atop the Alto de l'Angliru. Although it was only the tenth time this brutally steep climb was tackled in the Vuelta, it was already highly prestigious. Before reaching the Angliru, there were still 140 flat kilometers to cover, plus the Alto la Mozqueta and Alto del Cordal as warm-up climbs, both category 1 ascents.
In the early phase of such a stage, it’s always a bit of a gamble. Especially for the teams of the GC contenders – Visma | Lease a Bike and UAE Emirates XRG – it’s crucial to watch that no overly dangerous riders break away, but this didn’t seem to be the case. Immediately after the start, 25 riders took off.
Iron-strong Mads Pedersen colors the stage.
Their names? Ivo Oliveira (UAE Emirates XRG), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Jefferson Cepeda and Michel Hessmann (Movistar), Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal Quick-Step), Bob Jungels (INEOS Grenadiers), Tim van Dijke (Red Bull BORA hansgrohe), Edward Planckaert (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Antonio Tiberi and Roman Ermakov (Bahrain-Victorious), Nickolas Zukowsky and David Gonzalez (Q36.5), Nicolas Vinokourov (XDS Astana), Clément Afonso and Rémi Cavagna (Groupama-FDJ), Guillermo Thomas Silva and Joel Nicolau (Caja Rural RGA), Anders Foldager (Jayco-AlUla), Léandre Lozouet and Pierre Thierry (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Huub Artz and Kamiel Bonneu (Intermarché-Wanty), Jonas Gregaard (Lotto), José Luis Faura (Burgos-Burpellet), and Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech).
Visma | Lease a Bike had the situation under control - photo: Cor Vos
Since UAE Emirates XRG had a pawn up front thanks to Oliveira, Visma | Lease a Bike were responsible for controlling the race. The yellow jersey team kept the gap at about three minutes. Up front, green jersey Mads Pedersen was one of the most active riders, which almost cost him on the first climb of the day. Jungels went full gas and was joined only by Cepeda, Garofoli, and Vinokourov. But Pedersen refused to crack and conceded very little ground.
Pedersen still saved himself and soon after achieved the impossible by collecting the twenty points at the intermediate sprint. Mission accomplished, allowing the Dane to ride the stage out calmly. On the Alto del Cordal it was again Jungels pushing the pace, dropping Garofoli. The three then headed towards the descent of the Angliru.
Bob Jungels, Nicolas Vinokourov, and Jefferson Cepeda started the Alto de l'Angliru with a lead of just over two minutes. However, almost immediately that lead was cut by half a minute when some protesters blocked the road. It briefly seemed that the race officials would have to neutralize the race, but as the peloton approached, the situation was safe again.
UAE Emirates and Almeida fail to crack Vingegaard
In the main group, UAE Emirates XRG began increasing the pace from the foot of 'the beast.’ Juan Ayuso was already dropped by then; the two-time stage winner had to abandon on the previous climb without covering a single meter for leader Almeida. The other UAE riders more than made up for it. They steadily thinned the group and quickly called the three remaining leaders to order.
Jungels (background) showed his strength along the way - photo: Cor Vos
Six kilometers from the finish, it was Felix Großschartner who reduced the group on behalf of the Emirati team down to barely seven riders. Only his team leader Almeida, Vingegaard, Sepp Kuss (Visma | Lease a Bike), Jai Hindley (Red Bull-BORA hansgrohe), and Matthew Riccitello (Israel-Premier Tech) remained. Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) and Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R) were already a bit further back. Once the Austrian was spent, it was up to Almeida himself.
At 4.5 kilometers from the summit, Almeida did what was expected. He raised the tempo with a serious acceleration; only Jonas Vingegaard managed to hold his wheel. With a grimace on his face and staying seated throughout, Almeida kept the GC leader under pressure for kilometers. However, it never appeared that Vingegaard would crack. He looked back a few times, but only to check where Kuss was.
The Dane remained comfortably on Almeida’s wheel and didn’t make any move in the technical final section to pass the attacking Portuguese. Almeida thus took home at least one prize: the stage win atop the mythical Angliru. Behind them, the gaps were relatively small, with Hindley losing only half a minute.
Vuelta a España| Rank | Rider | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 04:54:15 | |
| 2 | " | |
| 3 | + 28 | |
| 4 | + 30 | |
| 5 | + 52 | |
| 6 | + 01:11 | |
| 7 | + 01:16 | |
| 8 | " | |
| 9 | + 02:15 | |
| 10 | + 03:06 |
