La Vuelta Ciclista a España 2025 Stage 9

August 31, 2025 The end of the first week is capped off with another mountain top finish, this time at Valdezcaray. The transfer from Zaragoza to the start in Alfaro for Stage 9 follows the Ebro River West out of Aragon and into La Rioja, one of the most famous wine DOC's in the world. The first half of the stage is Spanish flat, gently rolling as it travels North and West up to Villamediana de Iregua before a few changes of direction which eventually takes the riders to Santo Domingo de la Calzada on the banks of the Oja River for the intermediate sprint with 29KM to go on the 196KM stage. Through the sprint, the road follows the Oja upstream along a false flat valley to Ezcaray for the start of the only classified climb with the finish line on top. The climb is 13.3KM long at 5.2% but the first 4KM are 7.5% and could be a launch pad for attacks. The main problem is that there is a lot of easier gradients to the finish which could potentially bunch up the GC guys for another climber's sprint at the end. The break took a long time to go and in the end, five riders made it including Kevin Vermaerke of Picnic-PostNL, Archie Ryan of EF-Education EasyPost, Liam Slock of Lotto, Michał Kwiatkowski of Ineos, and Michel Hessmann of Movistar. With 91KM to go, they had 2 minutes 30 seconds as Lidl-Trek and Q36.5 were pulling with Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier and Nickolas Zukowsky. An dark rain cloud was forming ahead and with 71KM to go, the break was enveloped by the storm and the roads were soaked. Fortunately, the rain didn't cause any issues and the break came out of the storm on to drying roads still with 2 minutes at 55KM to go. Lidl-Trek got more serious with the chase at 35KM to go by adding a few extra riders to work load. The crowds were thick at the road side as the break went through the intermediate sprint in Santo Domingo de la Calzada with 30KM to go and a gap still at 1 minute 20 seconds. Lidl-Trek continued to bury themselves through Ezcaray and had the break at 15 seconds with the 15KM to go and the climb quickly approaching. The gruppetto formed right from the bottom of the climb as Lidl-Trek swept up the last riders from the break with 12KM to go. Rain drops began to fall but it didn't affect Carlos Verona's effort at the front of the bunch. Visma-Lease a Bike came around Lidl-Trek and ripped up the script with 11.5KM to go as Matteo Jorgenson launched an attack with Jonas Vingegaard latched on. Of the other GC contenders, only Giulio Ciccone of Lidl-Trek was able to follow. Jorgenson pulled off and Vingegaard was sprinting to get as much of an advantage as possible. UAE-XRG only had Jay Vine in front of João Almeida but the Portuguese was soon left to do the work to close the gap on his own. Ciccone dropped back to the chase group but that was fragmenting as well. With 9KM to go, Almeida had cut the group down to just Tom Pidcock of Q36.5 and Felix Gall of Decathlon AG2R and they were hovering around 10 seconds from Vingegaard. Under 7KM to go, Gall had dropped from Almeida and Pidcock but Vingegaard was pulling out the gap second by second. When the gradients lowered to around 4% with 3.5KM to go, Pidcock started to pull with Almeida but the gap had grown to 30 seconds with the rest of the GC favorites back at 1 minute 40 seconds. Vingegaard kept pressing the entire way to the line and took his second stage win of the first week. Pidcock won the sprint for second place, 24 second down with Almeida in third on the same time. Gall was next across the line, 1 minute 2 seconds behind with the rest of the GC group at 1 minute 46 seconds which included race leader Torstein Træen. The top three remain the same in GC with Træen leading Vingegaard and Almeida. Træen's lead is now just 37 seconds to Vingegaard and 1 minute 15 seconds to Almeida. Vingegaard's performance today solidifies him as the leader in-waiting and will have the rest of the GC contenders concerned going into the first rest day.