After two weeks of racing, and with just six more days left to battle it out, the race for the red jersey at the Vuelta a España has boiled down to a simple two horse race: Jonas Vingegaard versus João Almeida. While the rest of the GC contenders have lost time and faded further away, this pair remains locked close together at the top of the classification. They began the second week with 38 seconds separating them, in second and third place respectively; they end it in first and second, the margin between them increasing only marginally to 48 seconds.
There has been barely anything to choose between them throughout the race. Most of Vingegaard’s advantage came from his triumph atop Valdezcaray on the last day of the first week, when he attacked early on the climb to put 30 seconds into Almeida; no stage during the second week has seen such gains made by either rider. Vingegaard extended his lead by modest twelve seconds when he and Tom Pidcock dropped Almeida in the Basque Country on the stage to Bilbao, only for Almeida to regain four of those seconds at the top the Angliru courtesy of the bonus seconds awarded in the two-up sprint for the stage win. And the pair were once again inseparable on the summit finish of La Farrapona the following day, with Vingegaard this time grabbing two bonus seconds to give him his current lead of just 48 seconds.
In recent Grand Tours, it’s been rare to see such fine margins at the top of the GC at this stage of the race, especially ones in which Vingegaard has been involved. Not only did Vingegaard trail his rival Tadej Pogačar by 4:13 and 3:09 on the final rest day at both the previous Tours de France, his own lead over the rider in third-place was considerably greater; 3:40 over Florian Lipowitz this year, and 2:10 over Remco Evenepoel last year. The two preceding Tours that Vingegaard won were a similar story, with the Dane leading Pogačar by ten seconds but the next best rider Carlos Rodríguez by 5:21 in 2023; and Pogačar by 2:22 in 2022. The only exception was at the 2023 Vuelta, when Vingegaard ended the second week in third place just 53 seconds ahead of Juan Ayuso in fourth, but even then there was a sense that the GC race was more closed off, with the top two spots on the GC occupied by Vingegaard’s teammates Sepp Kuss and Primož Roglič.
Given these past performances, and in the absence of Pogačar, there were some expectations that Vingegaard would run away with the red jersey, but that has not been the case. As controlled as the Dane has been, and as rare as it has been that he’s looked under any serious pressure, he has never blown his rivals away in the manner he and Pogačar have in previous Grand Tours, and therefore never seized firm control of the lead. And it’s not necessarily for the want of trying — Vingegaard was very clear that he wanted the stage win on the Angliru, but simply didn’t have the legs to attack Almeida on it, and even lost out in the sprint between them.
All this means the stage is set for an intriguing final week showdown between Vingegaard and Almeida, with the overall title at stake. The question is, where will the differences be made? And where can Almeida look to gain those precious 48 seconds he needs to usurp Vingegaard in the red jersey? Although it is the final week, there isn’t that much climbing left to be done, and nothing as severe as the Angliru that was conquered last week. Stages 16 and 17 might be better described as medium mountain stages, neither exceeding 3,500m in elevation gain, leaving only stage 20’s finale in the Sierra de Guadarrama as the sole test in the high mountains.
The stage 18 time trial on Thursday therefore stands out as a potential game changer, and where the red jersey could be won and lost. At 27km, it’s certainty long enough to produce potentially decisive gaps, while the flat parcours will make it a very different test to the climbs that have so far caused the only small differences between them.
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Which of Vingegaard and Almeida will have the advantage in such a time trial? It’s difficult to say. Both are quality riders against the clock, among the best in the world at the discipline, especially among those who are also Grand Tour contenders. Past showdowns between the two suggest they’re both evenly matched. While Almeida was seven seconds quicker at the 33km time trial at this year’s Tour, Vingegaard was the better rider in both stages at the edition the year before, putting 20 seconds and then 1:15 into him on stages 7 and 21. Almeida has gone better the flatter the parcours are, which bodes well for next week’s stage, but even then the margins are small, with the Portuguese defeating Vingegaard by just six seconds on a 26km stage of the 2023 Vuelta, and 13 seconds at the 13km stage at the 2021 UAE Tour.
Such small gains won’t alone be enough to see Almeida take over the red jersey from Vingegaard, so he will likely look to the other stages to see where he can take back time. And it’s here that the elephant in the room, and the talking point for much of week two, comes into play: Almeida’s teammates. Much has been made about how Juan Ayuso, Jay Vine and most recently Marc Soler have prioritised riding for stage wins rather than the red jersey bid, and while the approach hasn’t hindered Almeida from remaining in second-place and well in contention, they could have done more to help him try and challenge Vingegaard.
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And could still do. The parcours of some of the stages in the final week, most notably the hilly stage 16, and mountainous stage 20, look conducive to GC ambushes, with terrain where strong climbing domestiques can blow a race apart. While Vingegaard will likely be well protected by his Visma-Lease a Bike super-domestiques Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson, the form shown by the UAE Team Emirates XRG clan suggest they might be in even better form.
Successfully harnessing their power might be what swings this race in favour of Almeida, be it as satellite riders up the road, an acceleration to set up an attack, or the psychological pressure of ganging up on Vingegaard. When such fine margins separate the two riders at the top of the GC, even a small contribution from a teammate could be what makes the difference.
