{"id":199682,"date":"2025-09-01T09:46:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=199682"},"modified":"2025-09-01T09:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:49:21","slug":"vingegaard-and-visma-lease-a-bike-strike-a-blow-as-ayuso-backpedals-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/09\/01\/vingegaard-and-visma-lease-a-bike-strike-a-blow-as-ayuso-backpedals-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Vingegaard and Visma | Lease a Bike Strike a Blow as Ayuso Backpedals Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonas Vingegaard and his Visma | Lease a Bike team surprised the Dane\u2019s GC rivals \u2013 and most of the cycling world \u2013 by attacking on yet another category 1 climb to a summit finish on Sunday\u2019s stage 9 to take his second win in the Vuelta Ciclista a Espa\u00f1a and gain valuable seconds in the race for the race win.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A surprise attack<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When everyone expected a rider not in the GC race to win this stage, Visma\u2019s Matteo Jorgenson led out Vingegaard on a furious attack with 11 km to go on the 13.3 km climb (@ 5.2%) to the ski station at Valdezcaray. The most surprised by the move was probably main rival Jo\u00e3o Almeida (UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG), who belatedly took up the chase, accompanied by Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) and Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).<\/p>\n

The gap to the chasers hovered around 10 seconds for some time, but grew to 19 seconds with 7 km left to ride and 31 seconds at 3 km. At the end, Vingegaard\u2019s winning margin was 24 seconds, after he eased off the pedals to raise his arms in triumph 20 meters from the finish. Pidcock finished second, with a visibly disappointed Almeida coming in third.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Vingegaard said after the stage. \u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admitted that he hadn\u2019t foreseen how much he had to do to bring the victory home. \u201cTo 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,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at that moment I had the gap, and I had to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vingegaard reduced his deficit to race leader Torstein Tr\u00e6en (Bahrain-Victorious) to 37 seconds but increased his lead over Almeida to 38 seconds, which puts the pressure on UAE to react. Vingegaard might have taken over the race leader\u2019s red jersey if Tr\u00e6en hadn\u2019t received a helping hand from Vingegaard\u2019s teammates Jorgenson and Sepp Kuss. Apparently, Jonas doesn\u2019t want to wear the race leader\u2019s red jersey until it means something. The stage was also very good for Pidcock, who now sits in fourth in the GC, at 1:35, and Gall, who is now fifth, 2:14 behind Tr\u00e6en.<\/p>\n

As for Almeida, he was left to rue the lack of help from his UAE teammates. \u201cI missed a little my teammates,\u201d he said afterwards. \u201cIn the end, I had no one with me.\u201d That \u201cno one\u201d may have referred to Juan Ayuso, who, after winning stage 7 with a superb ride, dropped behind the peloton at the bottom of the final climb on Sunday and finished 157th, nearly 22 minutes behind the winner. His presence on the climb would certainly have given Almeida a big boost. So what happened?<\/p>\n

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