Back-to-back stage wins at the Volta a Catalunya, on top of his dominant Paris-Nice victory, cap off perfect Grand Tour preparation for the Dane and his team.
Cor Vos
Only one short stage in Barcelona stands between Jonas Vingegaard and the Volta a Catalunya title after dominating in the mountains for a second day in a row. Following a decisive performance on La Molina on Friday, the Dane and his team presented another confident showing on stage 6, and though Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe took charge in the last 30 km, Vingegaard took it all in his stride before riding away to a victory that tightened his grip on the race lead.
“We wanted to go for the stage again today,” Vingegaard told the broadcaster while warming down. “We had Bart [Lemmen] in the break, and Menno [Huising] and Bruno [Armirail] controlled it really well for a long long time, and then Jorgen [Nordhagen] took over on the steep climb, so the whole team did an amazing job today, they did super well.”
[race_result id=14 stage_id=89954 count=5 gc=0 year=2026]
[race_result id=14 stage_id=89954 count=5 gc=5 year=2026]
With another day of around 4,000 metres of climbing, stage 6 was a gruelling task that looked like a promising opportunity for a strong breakaway. 15 riders went clear fairly early on, and along with climbing domestiques Bart Lemmen (Visma-Lease a Bike), Mattia Cattaneo (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) and Embret Svestad-Bårdseng (Ineos Grenadiers), there were several prospects for the stage or mountains jersey, and advances on GC, including Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) who may or may not also have been a satellite option if João Almeida was on a good day.
However, the leaders were never allowed an advantage of much more than two minutes, and the group shattered on the hors-catégorie Coll de Pradell, first after Soler’s attack about 8 km from the summit – taking Modern Adventure’s Byron Munton with him – then once they reached the brutally steep upper slopes in excess of 16%. The summit came about 60 km from the finish, and only Soler, Carapaz, Ciccone and Svestad-Bårdseng survived from the original breakaway, their lead slashed to just over a minute to a peloton led by Cian Uijtdebroeks (Movistar) who’d gained a handful of seconds near the crest – but would soon be re-absorbed by the Visma-led peloton.
Jorgen Nordhagen and Sepp Kuss were among the loyal mountain domestiques available to race leader Vingegaard during stage 6 in Catalunya.
The next challenge came with about 30 km to go as the peloton hit the Collada de Sant Isidre (5 km at 7.9%). Having regained almost 30 seconds of the advantage on the descent, Ciccone ventured out alone on the shorter but more consistently steep climb, but the action was beginning to really heat up behind as Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe took control with breakaway rider Cattaneo, Jai Hindley and Remco Evenepoel lined up for fourth-overall Florian Lipowitz.
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