A crash in the rain and a surge to the line

The two-time Tour de France champion survived a mass crash on a roundabout made slippery by rain with 26 km to go in the 159.5 km course from the Italian city of Alba to Limone Piemonte and registered only his second victory of the year, after stage 5 of the Volta ao Algarve on February 23. His last Grand Tour win dates back to stage 11 of the 2024 Tour de France, on July 10.

“To be honest, you’re not going to let a stage win go by, so when I saw the opportunity, of course I’ll take it,” he said afterwards. “Super happy with the victory today, it’s been a while since my last victory,obviously. Super happy with how I felt and how the team did today, also super happy having the red jersey.”

Asked about how he managed to catch Ciccone, he said, “I just went on his wheel and, to be honest, before the corner I didn’t think it would be possible to pass him. But then, from the corner, it was a bit longer to the finish than I thought, so then luckily I could just pass him.”

Vingegaard’s Visma teammates set a high-speed pace at the front of what was left of the peloton on the first half of the climb to Limone Piemonte (9.8 km @ 5.1%, with a 10% ramp near the top), but it was a large group of riders that came into the stage’s final kilometre. Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) set off the fight for the finish, but was caught by former Vuelta winner Sepp Kuss, who then put Vingegaard in position to go for the win.

But Ciccone was the first to sprint towards the line, at 300 meters, and had a lead of two bike lengths when Vingegaard set out in pursuit. It looked as if he had moved too late, but a final burst took him past the 30-year-old Italian as they both crossed the line. David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) finished third, earning his first Grand Tour stage podium since winning two stages of the 2020 Vuelta, while the resurgent Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) finished fourth.

Vingegaard benefited from the peloton slowing down to allow him to rejoin it after he crashed with several other riders. Ciccone said this was simply part of the sport’s unwritten rules. “You can’t take advantage when a great champion is down,” he said. Nevertheless, he was disappointed that he couldn’t win the stage. “I went for it on gut instinct, but that was maybe a bit too early,” he explained. “It was too difficult to keep it up. My legs are very good, but it’s a shame I didn’t win.”

Vingegaard also won his first race leader’s jersey, colored red in the Vuelta, since winning the 2023 Tour de France. With 19 stages still to race, he leads Ciccone by 4 seconds, with Gaudu in third at 6 seconds. Vingegaard’s main rivals, Joao Almeida and Juan Ayuso (both UAE Team Emirates–XRG) and Ben O’Connor (Jayco AlUla) finished 2 seconds behind and trail him in the GC by 12 seconds.

Philipsen’s déjà vu victory

It was déjà vu on Saturday when Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) easily won the opening stage of the Vuelta just as he had won stage 1 of this year’s Tour de France. But he will hope that the similarity ends with that as he crashed on stage 3 of the Tour, breaking his collarbone, and had to abandon. Saturday’s stage was the first of only two classified as bunch sprint races (stage 21 is the other), which means he took home 50 points in the Škoda Green Jersey competition.

Ethan Vernon (Israel–Premier Tech) finished second, and Orluis Orlar (Movistar) finished third. More importantly, one of Philipsen’s big rivals for the green jersey, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), was caught out of position when the sprint began and finished tenth. This means that the 2021 Vuelta green jersey winner trails Philipsen by 47 points in the points classification race.

“It’s a dream come true to be back here,” Philipsen said. “After the Tour, I was a bit down, my motivation was low, but then I got the opportunity to do the Vuelta. I didn’t know if it was possible; time was not on my side. I had to come back really fast from my injuries to achieve this. But when you have a setback, you have to find new goals. This win was especially nice, because I knew that for the kind of sprinter I am, there was only one real chance in the Vuelta, and that was today.”

The question is what he’s going to do over the next three weeks, with only the final stage to look forward to. He will have to get into breakaways in order to take points on intermediate sprints and then hope for another dominant victory in Madrid on September 14, and that Vingegaard doesn’t win many more races. The Dane is in third place in the green jersey race, with 30 points, with Philipsen at 50 and Vernon with 40.

Results of Stage 2 of the 2025 Vuelta Ciclista a España

Jonas Vingegaard, Visma–Lease a Bike 3:47:14
Giulio Ciccone, Lidl-Trek “
David Gaudu, Groupama-FDJ “
Egan Bernal, INEOS Grenadiers “
João Almeida, UAE Team Emirates–XRG + 0.02
Felix Gall, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale “
Jai Hindley, Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe “
Juan Ayuso, UAE Team Emirates–XRG      “
Matteo Jorgenson, Visma–Lease a Bike       “
Tom Pidcock, Q36.5 “

General Classification after Stage 2 of the Vuelta Ciclista a España

Jonas Vingegaard, Visma–Lease a Bike        7:56:16
Giulio Ciccone, Lidl-Trek + 0.04
David Gaudu, Groupama-FDJ + 0.06
Egan Bernal, INEOS Grenadiers + 0.10
Tom Pidcock, Q36.5 + 0.12
Jai Hindley, Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe ”
Santiago Buitrago, Bahrain-Victorious “
Matteo Jorgenson, Visma–Lease a Bike “
Juan Ayuso, UAE Team Emirates–XRG “
Marc Soler, UAE Team Emirates–XRG “