{"id":135091,"date":"2025-09-13T18:02:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T18:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/135091\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T18:02:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T18:02:06","slug":"pidcock-ready-for-podium-as-vingegaard-all-but-guarantees-vuelta-triumph-with-stage-win-vuelta-a-espana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/135091\/","title":{"rendered":"Pidcock ready for podium as Vingegaard all but guarantees Vuelta triumph with stage win | Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Pidcock stands to finish on the podium of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a on Sunday after surviving the final mountain test as Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> rode away to take a stage 20 win that all but seals his overall victory.<\/p>\n

Pidcock, defending an advantage of 39sec over Jai Hindley, wrestled his bike up gradients in excess of 20% to the summit of the Bola del Mundo \u2013 the last 3km of which were ridden on broken concrete in a brutal test of stamina at the end of three weeks.<\/p>\n

More than once the Yorkshireman appeared to be losing the wheels of his rivals but he never cracked, crossing the line in fourth place, five seconds behind Hindley to all but ensure he will be on the podium after Sunday\u2019s largely processional stage into Madrid. After bonus seconds were applied, Pidcock ended the day 30sec clear of Hindley, and 3min 11sec behind Vingegaard.<\/p>\n

It is a significant marker for the Olympic and former world mountain bike champion and former cyclo-cross world champion in the first Grand Tour where he has fully prioritised the general classification over stage wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty proud of myself, it\u2019s definitely the biggest performance of my career,\u201d the Q36.5 Pro Cycling<\/a> rider said. \u201cIt\u2019s maybe not the biggest win, others are more special, but … I\u2019m exhausted to be honest and I can\u2019t really find any words.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the best thing is now I can just relax. Day after day so you are so focused on everything, switched on for the race every day. Now I can just sit here. I don\u2019t have to put this jacket on or drink cherry juice or the disgusting recovery drinks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vingegaard set himself up to win the race when he increased his overall lead with victory on Saturday\u2019s penultimate stage, leaving his closest rival Jo\u00e3o Almeida in his wake in the final kilometre.<\/p>\n

After almost three weeks of racing, the Vuelta, and stage 20\u2019s 165.6km ride from Robledo de Chavela, all came down to the last gruelling kilometres to the summit finish at Bola del Mundo, and Visma-Lease a Bike rider Vingegaard went for glory rather than simply defending his red jersey.<\/p>\n

Portugal\u2019s Almeida (UAE Team Emirates XRG) began the day 44 seconds behind the Dane but did not have the legs to challenge and trailed in fifth on the stage, 22 seconds behind Vingegaard, who holds a 1min 16sec lead going into Sunday\u2019s final stage to Madrid.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard\u2019s teammate, and 2023 winner, Sepp Kuss was second on the stage, 11 seconds behind the winner, with Australian Hindley (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) in third.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard said: \u201cI wanted to win in Bilbao and at the Angliru, but the Bola del Mundo is also very special. I felt much better today than in the last summit finishes. I\u2019m very happy with how things have gone and the way the team has worked throughout these three weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end I didn\u2019t feel at the limit and in the final kilometre I decided to go for the stage. The last 300 metres were incredibly tough. I don\u2019t think things will change tomorrow, I hope to keep the red jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Pidcock stands to finish on the podium of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a on Sunday after surviving the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-135091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}