Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) denied Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) the victory on home soil, coming from behind to win by millimetres atop the Limone Piemonte climb. David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) was third.
The Dane crashed in a rain-slicked roundabout along with most of his teammates on the run-in to the final climb, but emerged relatively unscathed to snatch the overall leader’s jersey as stage 1 winner Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) lost contact on the climb.
How it unfolded
The first part of the day over the flatlands of southern Piedmont unfolded calmly enough, barring a crash in the neutralised zone for local favourite Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) ,and with a five-rider break of non-GC threats quickly forming.
Rather than being made up of purely non-WorldTour teams as so often happens in the first weeks of the Vuelta, interestingly, Nico Denz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Liam Slock (Lotto), and Gal Glivar from race leader Jasper Philipsen’s Alpecin-Deceuninck squad were all present, along with Jakub Otruba (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), while Sinhuhé Fernández (Burgos-Burpellet BH) jumped across late on.
After a brief spell on the front, Denz opted to sit up, but the remaining quartet continued to collaborate well, with Q36.5, clearly working for Pidcock, putting in much of the spadework to ensure their advantage stayed at around two minutes. Slock managed to clinch maximum points in the intermediate sprint in the town of Busca (Km 67) ahead of Otruba, while Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech) made inroads on Jasper Philipsen’s lead by clinching fifth.
As the stage moved into its second, more critical half, the arrival of light rain did little to deter an uptick in the overall pace. With 60 kilometres to go, the margin still stood at just over 90 seconds, and as the race finally moved into hillier terrain in the last 50 kilometres, the gap had barely dropped.
However, a small, unclassified climb saw the break begin to crumble under its own weight, as the four leading riders started attacking each other on the increasingly wet roads. Fernández was the first to fall behind, leaving just a trio of Otruba, Slock, and Glivar ahead, while Q36 continued to lay down the pace as the rain grew steadily heavier.
The roads were steadily, almost imperceptibly, rising, with Ineos throwing their weight into the chase as well. The worsening weather conditions also contributed to a sharp increase in crashes. GC outsider and former Vuelta mountains champion Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ) fell on a descent and had to abandon.
Then, with 30 kilometres to go, George Bennett (Israel-Premier Tech) could be seen doubled up in pain on the side of the road, although he was able to continue.
The biggest pileup, though, was a mass fall on the right with around 30 kilometres to go. Multiple riders down, amongst them no less than four Visma riders including lead overall contender Vingegaard, spin off the road to the right of a roundabout, when a Movistar rider, Jorge Arcos, skidded on the rain-soaked exit. While most of the team could continue fairly quickly and Vingegaard needed a bike change, his teammate Axel Zingle ended up spending long minutes being checked over by the race doctors before he could keep riding.
The peloton notably eased back to allow the fallers, which also included one top stage favourite, Pidcock. But Vingegaard’s raising of his left thumb as the TV cameras focused in on him and teammate Campenaerts, bringing him back to the bunch, indicated he was, in fact, ok, barring a bloody elbow.
By the time Vingegaard regained contact after a five-kilometre pursuit, the leading trio’s gap had risen again to 1:45. However, the notable rise in pace that then followed, helped by the roads drying out, too, saw the pendulum swing back against them, and with 12 kilometres left, that advantage had halved. Although the three made it onto the foot of the Limone still ahead, the combined might of Ineos, UAE and Visma was likely going to prove too much for them to survive for too long on the ascent itself.
Vuelta leader Philipsen had, unsurprisingly, already sat up before the ascent with all the other sprinters, while ahead Slock gave it one last crack of the whip and powered ahead alone. The slowly rising percentages on the climb did not deter the peloton from maintaining a ferocious pace, however, and after sweeping up Otruba and Gliver as they roared into the town of Limone Piemonte, by the time they came out of it, Slock was also forced to throw in the towel.
Visma’s hard work for Vingegaard in the middle of the broad ‘A’-road was matched by Bob Jungels for Ineos and Jayco-AlUlA on the left but there were still easily 100 riders in the front group with five kilometres to go. The hyper-fast ascent then saw Visma come to the fore alone with Wilco Kelderman, Vingegaard remaining firmly in third position in the head of the pack. 2.5 kilometres from the top, though, there was a change of scenario as Visma started to run out of support riders, with Lidl-Trek beginning to set the pace on an abruptly much tougher, narrower, finale. No attacks materialized as the race roared under the one-kilometre-to-go banner.
Finally, Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) burst out of the pack, only for Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) to counter. That challenge was quickly matched by Ciccone, making a prolonged acceleration as the road swung to the right and the finishing gantry. However, his late charge was countered by an equally dramatic charge for the line by Vingegaard, closing in on the Italian to clinch his first-ever Vuelta a España lead and third Vuelta stage of his career by less than half a wheel.
Such an early knock-out blow will doubtless both enormously boost Vingegaard’s morale, and it also shows that rather than risk any first week ambushes or changes of narrative – as so often happens in the Vuelta – the Dane is determined to establish his authority on the race from the word go.
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