{"id":657564,"date":"2026-05-08T11:04:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/657564\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T11:04:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:04:25","slug":"the-vuelta-femenina-is-about-to-explode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/657564\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vuelta Femenina is about to explode"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"One<\/p>\n

News & Racing<\/a><\/p>\n

The race concludes on the dreaded Angliru climb, where just about anything could happen.<\/p>\n

Lotte Kopecky leads the Vuelta by just 12 seconds with two stages remaining.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t been watching the Vuelta Femenina, now\u2019s the time to start. We\u2019re five stages into the first \u2018Grand Tour\u2019 of the 2026 season, and with just two days to go, the race is delicately and intriguingly poised.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Escape\u2019s Abby Mickey wrote in her preview of the course<\/a> last week, this year\u2019s Vuelta Femenina has a real sting in the tail with back-to-back uphill finishes to close out the race \u2013 both on climbs with average gradients over 10%. And as for the GC battle: that\u2019s in a fascinating spot too. Some 28 riders are within less than a minute of one another, and with the brutal Angliru climb to close out the race on Saturday night \u2013 one of the most feared climbs in all of world cycling \u2013 it\u2019s almost impossible to pick a winner from here.<\/p>\n

Race recap<\/p>\n

Before we look to the days ahead, here\u2019s a reminder of what\u2019s happened in the race so far.<\/p>\n

Stage 1<\/p>\n

After a late crash and a tricky 1 km drag to the line, Noemi R\u00fcegg (EF Education-Oatly) surged clear in the sprint, holding off Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) and Paris-Roubaix winner Franzi Koch (FDJ United-Suez) to take the first red leader\u2019s jersey.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Noemi R\u00fcegg wins opening stage of La Vuelta Femenina<\/p>\n

The EF Education-Oatly rider took the first red jersey of the week-long stage race in Spain.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Stage 2<\/p>\n

Race leader R\u00fcegg crashed out with 12 km to go in an aggressive finale, before a reduced bunch sprint. Kopecky\u2019s foot popped out of her pedal after bumping into Shari Bossuyt (AG Insurance-Soudal) in the final sprint, with Bossuyt winning the stage ahead of Koch and \u00c9vita Muzic (FDJ United-Suez). Koch moved into the overall lead.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bossuyt wins second La Vuelta stage, Koch moves into race lead<\/p>\n

Stage 1 winner and race leader Noemi R\u00fcegg crashed with 12 km to go and was unable to get back on her bike.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Stage 3<\/p>\n

After another attack-filled finale that saw race leader Koch distanced, C\u00e9drine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) got away with 2 km to go and held on to win the stage. Koch managed to get back to the chase group to hold the overall lead for another day. \u2018Winning\u2019 the bunch sprint for second moved Kopecky into second overall, just two seconds down.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

C\u00e9drine Kerbaol wins La Vuelta stage 3<\/p>\n

Franziska Koch held onto the overall lead ahead of stage 4.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Stage 4<\/p>\n

A day-long breakaway was only caught 2.6 km before the line. Kopecky won the bunch sprint that followed (ahead of teammate Anna van der Breggen) moving the Belgian into the overall lead.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lotte Kopecky wins La Vuelta stage 4, takes over GC lead<\/p>\n

The Belgian was only two seconds behind previous leader Franziska Koch heading into the fourth stage and will start stage 5 in red.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Stage 5<\/p>\n

Another breakaway led for most of the day before being wound in with 8.5 km to go. Van der Breggen (one of the pre-race favourites) went down inside the final 3 km (meaning she wouldn\u2019t lose any time) before the peloton geared up for another bunch sprint. For the second day running, SD Worx-Protime went 1-2, this time with Mischa Bredewold turning her leadout for Kopecky into victory, when Kopecky sat up. Kopecky maintained her overall lead.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

SD Worx-Protime go 1-2 at La Vuelta with Bredewold and Kopecky<\/p>\n

Lotte Kopecky kept her red jersey and gained some seconds over Franziska Koch going into stage 6, where the climbers will take over the spotlight.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Two tough days<\/p>\n

And so to the final two stages. Here\u2019s what the riders have to contend with as they trade the Classics-like stages of the first five days for the mountains of Asturias.<\/p>\n

Stage 6<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a bunch of climbing throughout the 106 km stage, but the final climb is particularly nasty. After a steep, technical downhill in the proceeding kilometres, the final ramp is 3.6 km at 12.9% \u2013 the sort of gradient that will suit only the very best climbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The climb that ends stage 6. Note the flat section in the middle which brings the average gradient down to 12.9%.Stage 7<\/p>\n

The final stage is easily the hardest of the Vuelta. It features nearly 3,300 metres of climbing in 133 km, three early climbs, then finishes with the notoriously difficult Alto de l’Angliru. All up, the climb is more than 12 km long at roughly 10% average, with the final 6.4 km being particularly savage at an average of 13% and peaking at 21.3%. The time gaps might be close at the top of the GC now, but they won\u2019t be on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\"\"The profile for the final stage.Tight at the top<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how the GC looks ahead of the two last two stages, with 28 riders clustered within a minute of one another. Again, a minute is nothing in the context of what lies ahead.<\/p>\n

[race_result id=9058 stage_id=90152 count=30 gc=30 year=2026]<\/p>\n

So many questions are yet to be answered. The most pertinent: does Kopecky have any chance of holding on to her overall lead, to win her first ‘Grand Tour’ after a couple of runner-up finishes?<\/p>\n

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Did we do a good job with this story?<\/p>\n

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\n News & Racing<\/a>
\n Vuelta Femenina<\/a>
\n women’s cycling<\/a>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News & Racing The race concludes on the dreaded Angliru climb, where just about anything could happen. Lotte…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-657564","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\/657564","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=657564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}