Vuelta a España stage 9: Jonas Vingegaard seizes win after solo charge on Valdezcaray climb

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) soloed to victory on stage 9 of the Vuelta a España, attacking near the base of the final 13km climb to win at the Valdezcaray ski station and draw closer to the red jersey.

Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) outsprinted João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) to take second and third, respectively after a valiant chase, 24 seconds behind the Dane, but making significant gains on their general classification rivals.

Led out by Matteo Jorgenson, Vingegaard attacked just 2km into the climb, initially with Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) on his wheel, but went solo with 10km still to climb, and would never be seen again.

Despite the best efforts of Almeida and Pidcock, who were within nine seconds of Vingegaard at one point, the Dane couldn't be caught, and the chasers had to settle for podium spots.

Red jersey Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious) finished in a group 1:46 down on Vingegaard, which means he will hold onto the race lead heading into the race's first rest day.

However, Jonas Vingegaard is now breathing down his neck, just 37 seconds down on GC and looking like the strongest rider in the race. Almeida moved up to third, 1:15 down on Træen, whilst Pidcock jumped from 11th to fourth at 1:35. The rest of the top 10 are a chunk down, with fifth-placed Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) 2:14 down.

"I felt super great today, and then on the last climb, I also felt really good, and I said to my team if they could speed up, and they did so I tried," Vingegaard said at the finish.

"They did super well. That was amazing teamwork, and I was really happy that I could finish it off. I couldn't do it without them."

"To be honest, maybe I didn't do my homework good enough because I thought it was closer to the finish when I attacked, and I was a bit surprised when I saw the 10-kilometre banner," he said of his early move. "But at that moment I had the gap, and I had to keep going."

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How it unfolded

It was an attacking start to the day as stage 9 rolled out of Alfaro, with various attempts to break away in the first 30km of racing, but no success for quite a while, with the peloton clearly picky about who they let up the road on a threatening day.

Though there were no categorised climbs on route apart from the finish, there were plenty of hills to contend with, especially in the opening part of the stage, so there were many launchpads for riders to try and get away, making for a tough battle.

It was over the top of one of these early climbs that a pair of riders did finally get away, with Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) and Archie Ryan (EF Education-EasyPost) breaking clear. On the descent, they were joined by Michel Heßmann (Movistar), Kevin Vermaerke (Picnic PostNL) and Liam Slock (Lotto), making it five up front. They built up a lead of just under three minutes, but were kept at a steady gap, with the peloton – led by Lidl-Trek – seemingly not wanting to just let the break sail away to the stage win.

The situation remained stable through the first half of the stage, with the break 2:30 ahead with 80km to go, as Q36.5 joined Lidl-Trek in the controlling effort as the peloton declined to take it easy.

Lidl-Trek continued pacing for the next 40km, gradually bringing the gap down, and with 40km the leaders – who were working hard together – were 1:44 ahead of the peloton. Lidl-Trek had some interest in bringing things back before the intermediate sprint with 29km to go, so Mads Pedersen could pick up some points, but in the end they didn't make the catch soon enough. At the sprint, Slock took the win and the maximum points with his breakaway companions mopping up the remaining points.

At that point, the gap was down to 1:15 as the 13km final climb loomed, with Lidl-Trek, Bahrain Victorious and Q36.5 continuing to work at the front of the bunch. The chase and the fight for position in the bunch heated up as the road ran into the base of the climb.

With 15km to go, the leaders had just a 13-second advantage, but at the base of the climb, they were swallowed up by the charging peloton despite the best efforts of Kwiatkowski and Ryan. It was still Lidl-Trek who were setting the pace on the front of the bunch, having some of the same all day, though their rouleurs had swapped for the climbing contingent of Andrea Bagioli, Carlos Verona and Ciccone.

However, it was Visma-Lease a Bike who struck first just 2km into the climb, with Matteo Jorgenson putting in a big move to pull Vingegaard and Ciccone clear, though the American soon pulled off – after creating a healthy gap. The explosion of pace meant there was only a reduced chasing group behind, with red jersey Træen not part of it.

With 10km to go, Vingegaard drew clear of Ciccone, but only nine seconds ahead of the chasing group, led by a charging João Almeida. Almeida soon also ripped apart the chase group, with only Tom Pidcock and Felix Gall able to follow him, though the Austrian dropped with 7.5km to go. Pidcock and Almeida were working together, but Vingegaard had drawn out a lead of 22 seconds and growing.

Pidcock and Almeida managed to not let the gap balloon in the final 5km, but ultimately couldn't close it, leaving Vingegaard to solo to his second stage victory of the race. Sprinting 24 seconds behind the Dane, Pidcock just beat Almeida to second, as the pair made gains on GC.

The next main group of riders finished 1:46 down, containing red jersey Træen, meaning he held onto the race lead, but he and the rest of that group lost a significant chunk of time of Vingegaard, Pidcock and Almeida going into the first rest day.

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