Vingegaard Secures Vuelta a España Lead with Bola del Mundo Stage Victory
BOLA DEL MUNDO, SPAIN – September 13, 2025 – Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a bike) dramatically extended his lead in the vuelta a España with a commanding solo victory on the punishing Bola del mundo summit finish, 1.2km from the top of the brutally steep concrete road leading to the telecoms station at 2,251 meters.
Vingegaard attacked, passing Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) before a right-hand turn and distancing the group including overall contender João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). He finished 11 seconds ahead of teammate Sepp Kuss,with Hindley third,Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) fourth, and Almeida fifth.
The win marked Vingegaard’s third stage victory of the race and secured a 10-second bonus,pushing his overall advantage to 1 minute and 16 seconds over Almeida with only one sprint stage remaining on Sunday in Madrid. pidcock solidified his first Grand Tour podium finish, holding off Hindley for third place overall.
“I wanted to win in bilbao and I wanted to win on Angliru, but Bola del Mundo is also very special one,” Vingegaard said post-race. He described his winning move, stating, “I was feeling…at least I felt like that I wasn’t on my limit.I felt that I had a good chance of winning the stage. At one point I just decided,’Now I’m going to try.’ And then immediately I got a gap. The last few hundred meters were incredibly hard. I almost went into the barrier, a small mistake on my part.”
Vingegaard also revealed he had been battling illness recently, but felt improved for today’s stage.”I felt better than the previous mountain top finishes. So I’m super happy with how things went for me today and how the team has done in the last three weeks. The team has been so amazing. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
Almeida acknowledged feeling unwell but emphasized his team’s effort. “We had to try, we had nothing to lose,” he said. “The idea was to do it as fast as we could, make the stage as hard as we could. unfortunately, I’ve been sick this week, so the feeling wasn’t the best. But we still tried and I think that’s what matters. I’ve got no regrets. We did what we could. Congrats to Jonas. He was super strong, and I think it’s not too bad being behind him.”
In a separate advancement, Matthew Riccitello (Israel-PremierTech) overtook Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) to claim the white jersey as best young rider.
