The show has begun. Jonas Vingegaard has resisted the urge to wrestle control of the Vuelta a España in the opening week, happy to see the red jersey fall from his shoulders and first onto David Gaudu’s and latterly Torstein Træen’s. Rojo still belongs to the latter, but after stage nine there is no doubt who the real leader of the race is: Vingegaard.
In the final action before the first rest day, Vingegaard attacked at the bottom of the climb to Valdezcaray, right where the steepest slopes were, and cruised all the way to the top in the pouring rain, finishing 24 seconds ahead of Tom Pidcock and João Almeida. This was no repeat of his Hautacam exhibition from the 2022 Tour de France – the climb got progressively easier as it wore on, limiting the chance of building a bigger lead – but it was a declaration of intent: the big mountains have arrived, and Vingegaard is here to win, and win comprehensively.
His Visma-Lease a Bike team have been preaching patience and insisting that they’ll have a different strategy in the second and third week of the race, and here that game plan was on full display, a day earlier than what they had promised. The day’s breakaway was kept on a tight leash at all times in preparation for Vingegaard’s move, and in scenes reminiscent of this year’s Tour when Jhonatan Narváez produced a wicked turn of speed at the foot of the Hautacam to tee Tadej Pogačar up, Matteo Jorgenson went to the front of the peloton as the climb to the ski station begun to bite, and away Vingegaard went. At first he had Giulio Ciccone with him for company, but not for long. Vingegaard would complete the rest of the climb alone, riding his own unmatchable pace.
“I felt super great today, and then on the last climb I also felt really good,” he said afterwards, confirming what was obvious to the spectators. “And then I said to my team, if they could speed up - and they did, and I tried. They did super well, that was amazing teamwork. I'm super happy that I could finish it off, I couldn't do it without them."
He’s not yet taken red from Træen – the Norwegian lost 1:45 but still has a 37 second advantage – but Vingegaard is in the driving seat. Based on this display, too, he’s only going to have Almeida, and surprisingly Pidcock, within his vicinity. The road is clear for Vingegaard to stamp his authority all over the race.
For anyone wanting a genuine GC fight, the reality is Vingegaard might have it sewn up in the next six days of action. There are three summit finishes, two of them being the fearsome Angliru and Farrapona, and two undulating days typical of the north of Spain that, should Vingegaard want to inflict maximum pain on his rivals, provide the opportunity for him to do so.
Pidcock is an unknown quantity as a GC rider in a Grand Tour, and Almeida doesn’t appear to have the committed support of all his UAE Team Emirates-XRG colleagues. By contrast, Vingegaard is unflappable and always excels in three-week races – he’s finished first or second in his last six Grand Tours – and can rely on every single one of his six remaining teammates to turn themselves inside out for him.
He won stage two and his team were second in the team time trial, but now Vingegaard has truly entered the Vuelta’s stage. It’s likely to be a procession from here on.
