September 12, 2026
The majority of the peloton are on their hands and knees, just willing La Vuelta to come to a conclusion, but there is one more mega-mountain day to suffer through before finishing the final Grand Tour of the year. Today's 187 km route covers five categorized climbs and nearly 5,000 meters of elevation gain. The start is in the tiny town of La Calahorra at 1,200 meters above sea level in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and in the shadow of the 16th century Castillo de La Calahorra. The first 80 km are actually not too bad with just one category three climb as the riders make their way West into Granada. From there, the difficulties start with a double ascent of the 8 km, 8% Puerto de El Purche. Off the second descent, the route climbs for 12 km including two 2 km ramps, the first is at 8% and the second is just over 5%. Those hills are uncategorized and serve to bring the race to the base of the Puerto del Duque. At 7.4 km long and an average gradient of 8.2%, the Puerto del Duque sounds hard but it doesn't tell the whole story. The lower part of the climb averages over 10% for 2.3 km with pitches therein of 20%. A Bonus Sprint awaits at the top but the day is not done because after a 15 km descent down to the Genil River and an uncategorized climb to Güéjar Sierra, the riders start the ascent of the Collado del Alguacil up to the finish of the stage. The climb is 8.4 km at almost 10% and will expose any weakness present among the riders in the GC top 10. The stage is a pure expression of strength and endurance and will provide our Vuelta Champion at the end of it.
Race Summary
When the race official's car pulled away at KM0, attacks followed and the racing was underway. The long straight road out of La Calahorra cut through the valley with the high peaks over their left shoulders with views not dissimilar to those in Provence of Mont Ventoux. Wout van Aert of Visma-Lease a Bike and Ivo Oliveira of UAE-XRG forced their way off the front with plenty more trying to form advancing groups behind. Uno-X Mobility came forward with a team attack and created a group of around 10 riders, 6 of which were from the Norwegian squad. With 169 km to go, the wind was just strong enough to create echelons in the main field. Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe were well drilled and driving the pace while Movistar riders were dropping backwards to find race leader Enric Mas. From what could be seen, Oscar Onley of Netcompany-Ineos made the first split and perhaps others but Movistar stitched things back together 5 km later and the situation was saved for Mas.
Outside of Guadix, van Aert and Oliveira were caught by the Uno-X Mobility train to make a group of 14 riders at the front of the race. On a little climb with 154 km to go, counter attacks went from the peloton that included multiple Movistar riders which elicited a response from many other teams. The peloton was splitting and changing formations and strung out in single file.
By the start of the third category Puerto de Blancares with 144 km to go, the lead group had around 30 seconds on a chase of roughly 30 riders who in turn had 20 seconds on the main peloton which contained the GC favorites. Movistar and EF-Education EasyPost were well represented in the second group on the road and were riding hard to build a gap over the peloton that had settled under a calmer pace set by Movistar. At the top with 136 km to go, the leading group of 14 riders had nearly 1 minute on the giant chase group, which had swelled to around 50 riders, and 2 minutes back to the peloton.
The gaps continued to expand as the riders raced through Quéntar and into the gorge following the Río de Aguas Blancas towards the confluence with the Genil. With 112 km to go, the leaders had nearly 3 minutes on the giant chase group and almost 9 minutes to the peloton who were happy to let things blow out. The lead group arrived at the base of the first passage of the Puerto de El Purche with 100.5 km to go and over 10 minutes to the peloton. The lower slopes were very steep but it was still Uno-X Mobility working for Andreas Leknessund and Tobias Johannessen who were both in the group.
When the GC group reached the bottom of the Puerto de El Purche, Sepp Kuss of Visma-Lease a Bike jumped clear into no-man's land and had many minutes to cross before reaching any known group. A few kilometers later, Richard Carapaz of EF-Education EasyPost did the same but his attack was a full sprint and there was no chance for anyone to get into his slip stream. Immediately, the riders remaining for Decathlon CMA CGM got on the front and upped the pace for Felix Gall which distanced all other teammates for Mas who were in the peloton, although Movistar had quite a few riders in groups further up the road. Carapaz reached Kuss and the pair realized their shared goal and started to work together up the mountain. All of Gall's teammates were gone with over 96 km to go and he was forced to ride for his own spot in GC. At this point, only Mas, Primož Roglič of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Oscar Onley of Netcompany-Ineos, Clément Berthet of Groupama-FDJ United, Jakob Omrzel of Bahrain Victorious, and Cristián Rodríguez of XDS-Astana were left in the GC group.
Meanwhile at the head of the race, van Aert took the leaders over the Puerto de El Purche with 92.5 km to go to collect the KOM points. The eleven riders left at the front were van Aert and Oliveira, Finn Fisher-Black of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Louis Rouland of Cofidis, Oscar Chamberlain of Decathlon CMA CGM, Pau Miquel of Bahrain Victorious, and Andreas Leknessund, Tobias Johannessen, Magnus Cort, Simon Dalby, and Andreas Kron of Uno-X Mobility. After taking maximum KOM points, van Aert moved onto 52 points, 26 points behind Polka Dot Mountain's leaders Santiago Buitrago.
When the GC riders reached the summit, Gall had ridden hard enough to drop everyone except for Mas and Roglič. He was also successful in catching Carapaz and Kuss just as they began the descent. Unfortunately for Carapaz, he was caught by Gall and the others a bit too early because in the middle of the descent, two of his teammates dropped back from front groups and joined their leader. If Carapaz could have reached them earlier, they may have towed Carapaz clear of Gall but instead, the guys in pink functioned to simply pull the GC group along and away from those lower in the overall top 10 like Onley and Omrzel who were chasing behind.
The lead group came back around the loop and arrived at the base of the second passage of the Puerto de El Purche with 69.5 km to go with about 3 minutes on a chase group and 8 minutes 40 seconds to the Mas group which had around ten riders in it. Cort buried himself and pulled off, leaving four of his teammates still there in the front. The full group rode to the summit together with the exception of Rouland who dropped halfway up. Near the top, van Aert accelerated for the KOM points but Miquel was paying more attention this time and followed the Belgian in defense of Buitrago's lead. Miquel and van Aert lunged for the line as they came to the top, side by side, but the race craft and pure speed of van Aert was the difference and he took 10 points to get him within 16 points of Buitrago.
The GC group reached the bottom of the Puerto de El Purche and teammates were coming back from chase groups ahead. They offered bottles, a word of encouragement, and a pull for a few hundred meters before swinging off and drifting backwards. It was relatively controlled until Kuss made another effort to go clear. No one followed and the American was able to build a 30 second lead pretty quickly. There was no real concern with Mas or Gall and they continued to ride a tempo effort but that changed when Carapaz struck out again. It was further up the mountain than his move on the last lap which forced Gall to react straight away. Carapaz was hauled back before the top and it was Carapaz, Gall, Mas, Roglič and a few break away riders left, still with more than 60 km to go.
There was no news for hours on the second group on the road, but on the descent off the Puerto de El Purche heading towards Puerto del Duque, Mikel Landa of Soudal Quickstep bridged to the leaders which brought into question, who else was closing in. Uno-X Mobility was unrelenting in their work rate, towing the lead group passed the dam on the Canales Reservoir and towards the Intermediate Sprint in Güéjar Sierra. Van Aert grabbed maximum points at the sprint with 43 km to go and hit a steep kicker moments later of 16% which distanced Leknessund.
As the GC group continued together towards the bottom of the Puerto del Duque, they were picking up dropped riders all the time. The group swelled to around 20 riders by the time they reached the Intermediate Sprint and all of the GC leaders had at least one teammate there to help. There was so much going on with riders everywhere, but a report did come through that Kuss was around 6 minutes off the lead group at this point which put him roughly 2 minutes 15 seconds ahead of the GC favorites.
The road leading into the Puerto del Duque was extremely narrow at no more than three riders wide as it rose steeply up the gorge and twisted its way up the rock face. Near the bottom, Ramses Debruyne of Alpecin-Premier Tech made his way into the front group and let everyone know he was there by going straight to the front. His pace was so high that it distanced everyone but Landa and Johannessen and the three riders were clear with 37.5 km to go and just over 6 km to the top. Landa, Debruyne, and Johannessen rode together up the entirity of the Puerto del Duque and it was Landa who led over the top with 31.5 km with just one big mountain to go. Since van Aert did not score, it was mathematically impossible for anyone to take the KOM jersey off of Buitrago as long as the Colombian finished today and tomorrow.
The GC group remained relatively in control as teammates were caught and then quickly burned away. Carapaz had one more card to play and that was with Juan Felipe Rodriguez who was caught from earlier moves and started pulling early on the Puerto del Duque. It wasn't long before the group was back down to Rodriguez, Carapaz, Mas, Gall, and Roglič. Rodriguez pulled off with around 5 km still to climb and Carapaz accelerated. It wasn't a full sprint like he tried earlier but it was a hard effort nonetheless. Mas, Gall, and Roglič all matched the move and Carapaz decided to shut it down pretty quickly. Rodriguez came back, pulled once again and launched Carapaz but the move had the same result and it was becoming clear that all four riders were incredibly well matched. The pace completely went out of the group and the gap to the leaders went from 7 minutes 45 seconds to 9 minutes 30 seconds and they still weren't at the top. The gap to the leaders was not a concern, but Kuss started the day at 11 minutes 4 seconds and was still in the middle somewhere and gaining time, pushing his way towards the GC top 5 or 6. Carapaz tried two more times but couldn't shake the others and they went over the top together, led by Iván Romeo of Movistar who drifted backwards into the GC group to help Mas for as long as possible.
After the descent, the road climbed all the way to the official base of the Collado del Alguacil. About 1 km before the start, a camera bike picked up the Kuss group and marked them at 3 minutes 40 seconds off the leading trio. The Mas group was at 9 minutes which firmly had Kuss in fifth overall and threatening the fourth place of Carapaz with van Aert and Jørgen Nordhagen who were pulling hard for the American.
Debruyne led front of the race onto the Collado del Alguacil with 8.4 km to go up a steep ramp covered in fans on both sides of the road. At 7 km to go, Landa put in a dig which distanced Debruyne and had Johannessen swinging on the Spaniard's wheel. Landa kept the power down and cracked Johannessen leaving Landa with nothing but open road in front of him. Johannessen didn't give up but Landa was climbing in the drops and looked like the Landa from a decade ago. The valley disappeared below as the Basque rider climbed higher and higher with only a narrow berm between he and the cliff's edge. Slowly, Landa pounded his way through the last kilometer and came into the finish straight full of emotion. He crossed the line in victory for the first time in over five years, stopped pedaling, and slumped over his bike in pure exhaustion, joy, and relief. Johannessen came in just under 1 minute later for second after an inspiring ride by his entire team with Debruyne finishing in third.
On the last major climb of this Vuelta for the GC riders, the group was controlled by Movistar and everyone looked completely exhausted. Pablo Castrillo was the last helper for Mas and when he pulled off, Gall gave it some gas which actually created a bit of distance back to the others. Mas came across but Roglič couldn't respond and tried to increase his effort as he stayed seated with Carapaz on his wheel. Roglič got rid of Carapaz but further ahead, Gall was creating space to Mas who showed weakness for the first time in three weeks. Mas settled in and kept the Austrian in sight as they passed under 1 km to go. Gall reached the finish and when Mas crossed the line, the clocked stopped at 17 seconds, well within a safe margin. Mas could finally breathe a sigh and be content in the knowledge that he had won La Vuelta. Roglič sprinted with everything he had and finished 55 seconds down on Gall which was enough to preserve his second overall by 29 seconds. The last story line of the day came while waiting for Carapaz to finish. Kuss had finished in eighth on the day, 4 minutes 35 seconds down on Landa but Carapaz didn't capitulate and had nearly 2 minutes in hand to keep his fourth place overall, with Kuss now in fifth.