Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma–Lease a Bike) stamped his authority on the final mountaintop ascent of the Vuelta a España and won stage 20 atop the hors categorie Bola del Mundo.
The Dane’s teammate Sepp Kuss pushed two seconds ahead of Jai Hindley (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) at the summit and secured second place, Hindley taking third on the stage. Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) trailed another five seconds down for fourth.
The front group of five leaders on the final steep banks for Bola del Mundo turned into chasers when Vingegaard launched his attack with 1.5km to go. João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) managed to continue forward momentum to finish fifth, 22 seconds back, while Matthew Riccitello (Israel-Premier Tech) finished another two seconds down in sixth, as he looked to move into the best young rider classification lead.
How it Unfolded
The penultimate stage of the race was the last in the mountains for the three-week stage race with two stories unfolding. Just 44 seconds separated Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma–Lease a Bike) and João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) at the top of classification and 39 seconds were between Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) and Jai Hindley (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe), the Brit holding a spot on the podium.
The five classified climbs amounted to a total of 4,226 metres of elevation gain, including the feared Bola del Mundo, so there was enough mountain real estate for Almeida to gain time. The sawtooth profile of the day included the first trio of climbs across the opening 58km – Alto de la Escondida (13.6km at 4.1%), Puerto de la Paradilla (5.8km at 5.4%), and Alto del León (7km at 7.3%). The two most sizeable ascents were positioned on the back half, with the category 1 Alto de Navacerrada (6.9km at 7.6%) offering a time bonus with 50km to go and then the hors categorie Bola del Mundo (12.3km at 8.6%) for the finale. In the opening kilometres, a crash in the peloton saw a few riders go down, including
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