Vuelta a España stage 9 LIVE: Alto de Aitana awaits as race carries on without Pogačar
La Vila Joiosa/Villajoyosa to Alto de Aitana.Costa Blanca, 187.4 km with just under 5000 metres of climbing and six categorised climbs on the menu.
This has the most climbing of any stage in this year's La Vuelta. 4940 metres of climbing.
The leading 6 have just 10" on the chasing 5 riders with a further 10" back to the peloton. This isn't getting away just yet.
180km to go
Lutsenko is back with Andreas Kron (Uno-X Mobility), Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and three others but another group made of five riders including two from UAE are coming across the gap.
The lead group grows so Lutsenko launches a move off the front and is now solo.
The lead group grows with Jack Haig (Netcompany-Ineos), Michael Gogl (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Domen Novak (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) involved.
Alexey Lutsenko (NSN) is the other rider in the front group. Two riders from Kazakhstan, one from Norway and one from Denmark.
Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) is also in this lead group with about 20 riders trying to bridge the gap.
Attack
First move comes off the front with Yevgeniy Fedorov (XDS-Astana) and Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility) go away in a group of four.
Sinuhé Fernandez (Burgos-Burpellet-BH) will wear the gold combativity number.
The start of this stage is likely going to be chaotic with UAE Team Emirates-XRG being one of the teams who will be very keen to get up the road to chase stage wins after they all lost well over 11 minutes yesterday.
Mas revealing the red jersey on the podium for the team presentation earlier...
The riders are all set and rolling at the neutral start. They have 6.4km of neutralised zone today.
Pogačar is remaining as positive as he can do after the crash with the world champion spending a few nights in Barcelona hospital.
Yesterday, Mas refused to wear the red jersey after Pogačar crashed out...
As well as the battle for red, the battle for the blue and white KOM jersey is on with a big day of points available today. Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility) leads the way ahead of green jersey holder Wout Van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) by just three points with plenty of climbs to come that will open the battle to more riders.
Today's stage is another brutal day at La Vuelta with six classified climbs including the final climb of the Alto de Aitana which is 22km long at 5.8%. The GC will surely see another big shake-up with more riders seeing a massive opportunity to challenge for the overall title.
Hola and welcome to our live report of La Vuelta a España 2026 stage 9. The race looks very different after the events of yesterday which saw race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) crash out. Now, Enric Mas (Movistar) leads the way.
