{"id":104279,"date":"2025-08-29T13:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T13:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/104279\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T13:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T13:08:08","slug":"vuelta-a-espana-2025-stage-7-preview-four-massive-climbs-in-pyrenees-offer-opportunities-for-gc-gaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/104279\/","title":{"rendered":"Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a 2025 stage 7 preview – Four massive climbs in Pyrenees offer opportunities for GC gaps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Start time: 11:55 CESTFinish time: 17:15 CESTHow to watch<\/a> stage 7 of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1aFavourites to win the stage: Giulio Ciccone, Matteo Jorgenson, Jo\u00e3o Almeida, Jai Hindley<\/p>\n

The Pyrenees continue to loom large for back-to-back mountaintop finishes in store at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> on stage 7. A 188.3km Friday showdown awaits with four categorised climbs, the 12.1km finale to the Cerler ski resort in the Spanish provence of Huseca.<\/p>\n

The start in Andorra la Vella and the finish in Cerler have both hosted the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a on multiple occasions, the capital of Andorra hosting the Grand Tour 11 times and Cerler making nine appearances, the first as a finish line in 1987.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

From Andorra la Vella the peloton will ride only 8.3km to cross the border back into Spain. Another 7km later the 24.7km ascent to the category 1 opener to Port del Cant\u00f3 begins. The gradient averages a modest 4.4%, but irregular gradients persist, touching 8% on the bottom third of the climb and then 7% before the final third.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

A long descent leads to the valley where the Flamisell and Noguera Pallaresa rivers converge in La Pobla de Segur brings riders to the final 100km, with a pair of category 2 passes – Puerto de la Creu de Perves (5.7km at 6.3%) and Coll de l’Espina (7.1km at 5.5%).<\/p>\n

From Castlej\u00f3n de Sos at the base of l’Espina, the route takes a hard turn in the high Benasque Valley to complete the final 30km, all uphill, and the Cerler climb comprising the last 12.1km. The average gradient is 5.8% the tougher section in the first half.<\/p>\n

Following a major mountain stage the day before, look for more GC gaps to form. Torstein Tr\u00e6en (Bahrain Victorious) now leads the overall<\/a> with a strong display of climbing on Thursday, but former race leader Jonas Vingegaard\u2019s (Visma-Lease a Bike) is only four places behind at 2:33 back, which isn’t much for these mountains.<\/p>\n

Other climbing talents like Jo\u00e3o Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) are just a handful of seconds further back and in striking distance to disrupt the GC standings.<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

\n

\"Stage\n<\/p>\n

Stage 7 profile for the 2025 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a (Image credit: Lavuelta.es)ClimbsPort del Cant\u00f3 (cat.1) 37.9kmPuerto de la Creu de Perves (cat.2) 107.7kmColl de l’Espina (cat.2) 141.5km – time bonusCerler (cat.1) 188kmSprints<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Start time: 11:55 CESTFinish time: 17:15 CESTHow to watch stage 7 of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1aFavourites to win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-104279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}