It’s been an incredibly fraught edition of the Vuelta a España this year, ‘the saddest Vuelta in history’ according to Spanish newspaper AS, and one where political and military conflict far beyond the borders of Spain indirectly caused some of the defining images of the 2025 race.
On the one hand, the victory for Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) meant the double Tour de France winner could both take a hugely prestigious and challenging win, and simultaneously regain valuable additional momentum in his longer-term battle to take on Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)
Here, then, is Cyclingnews’ take on six key moments of the 2025 Vuelta a España.
Stage 6: Juan Ayuso drops out of the overall battle
Five kilometres from the top of the final ascent to Pal on stage 6, Juan Ayuso dropped out of the main group of favourites, and simultaneously, as his time loss reached over seven minutes by the finish, he said farewell to a lot of things.
First and foremost, Ayuso bid farewell to any chance of repeating his 2022 breakthrough podium finish in the Vuelta a España, let alone taking on the role of principal challenger to top favourite Jonas Vingegaard.
Even before the race reached Spain, Vingegaard had already shown that when he said he wanted to win the Vuelta, it wasn’t idle talk. A sizzling acceleration to victory on the Limone Piemonte summit finish on stage 2, coupled with a fine third place behind surprise stage winner David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and an unusually uneven Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) on the uphill drag to stage 3 at Ceres, saw Vingegaard briefly in red and with his credentials for victory in Madrid fully confirmed.
However, UAE Team Emirates-XRG then moved into the GC driving seat with their surprise victory…
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