La Vuelta Ciclista a España 2025 Stage 1

August 23, 2025 The 80th Vuelta Ciclista a España kicks off with the sixth foreign start in history in Turin Italy. The race heads North across the Po plain to Bollengo for the first and only categorized climb of the day, La Serra, a 6.5KM climb at just over 5%. The intermediate sprint is in Valdengo 90KM from the finish. The riders continue North all the way to the Southern tip of Lago Maggiore in Arona before swinging South for the finish in Novara after 186KM. The second half of the stage is rolling but it shouldn't cause the sprinters trouble and one of the fast men will likely don the first Red Jersey of this year's race. A long neutralized zone of 13KM got the riders through the crowded cobbled streets outside the La Venaria Reale. The start was given at KM0 under the shadow of Superga on the banks of the Po and the attacking came straight away. Six riders got clear after just a few kilometers and the bunch shut down and spread across the road. Leading the race was Pepijn Reinderink of Soudal Quickstep, Koen Bouwman of Jayco AlUla, Joel Nicolau of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, Hugo de la Calle of Burgos-Burpellet BH, Alessandro Verre of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, and Nicolas Vinokurov of XDS-Astana. Alpecin-Deceuninck started to chase with Tobias Bayer quite early when the gap was just 1 minute. Lidl-Trek added Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier to the chase to show their interest in a bunch sprint. The gap slowly ticked up to 2 minutes when the break reached the vineyards in Candia Canavese at 145KM to go. The break arrived at the climb of La Serra with 123KM to go and it took until 1,500M from the top to get the first attack. Vinokurov went with Nicolau and Reinderink on the wheel. Near the top, Vinokurov faded but a flying Verre came from nowhere and made it up to Reinderink and Nicolau. Reinderink blew 200M from the top and the sprint was won by Verre who will wear the blue polka-dot Mountains Jersey tomorrow. Vinokurov tried to go long for the intermediate sprint in Valdengo but Reinderink caught on and sat on the wheel. Vinokurov continued riding which made Reinderink's job was easy to get over the top to take maximum points. After the sprint, the gap came right down to just a few seconds and de la Calle attacked to be last one standing. He extended the gap out to 1 minute again but with 38KM to go, de la Calle was reeled back in and the race was back together. Other teams got organized at the front with 28KM remaining to start setting their position for the finale. GC and sprint teams were all across the road with nine competing trains all drag racing on the wide Strada Statale heading towards Novara. The Alpecin-Deceuninck sprint train made their first appearance at the front with 6KM to go and it wasn't long before the GC teams started to slide towards the back, now safe in the instance of a crash or mechanical within the final 5KM. Visma-Lease a Bike finally came off the front with 2.5KM to go and were replaced by the Ineos and Lotto sprint trains. Israel-Premier Tech strung the bunch out under 1KM to go and put Ethan Vernon in perfect position. Lotto were there with Elia Viviani but Alpecin-Deceuninck came back with numbers. Jasper Philipsen was dropped off with 150M to go and the result was sealed. Once Philipsen opened up, no one was going to come around and the Belgian took the win and Red Jersey in the process. Vernon took second, just pipping Orluis Aular of Movistar into third.