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<\/p>\nJasper Philipsen\u2019s target was clear coming into La Vuelta and was voiced by his team: \u201cAlpecin-Deceuninck lines up with one clear goal \u2014 stage wins, just as we\u2019ve done in most previous grand tours.\u201d And on stage one, that goal has already been achieved as the Belgian who just a month and a half ago had to abandon the Tour de France on stage three after a heavy crash, sprinted to victory in Novara and took the first Maillot Rojo of the race.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinning is always a nice feeling and definitely when there\u2019s a reward like the Red Jersey, of course it\u2019s a nice present,\u201d said Philipsen after the race. \u201cAfter my crash in the Tour I was really disappointed to be out. You work really long for it and it\u2019s been a major goal and then its a setback and you have to find more goals. We know we only had one chance [at the Red Jersey] because there\u2019s not many opportunities for a sprinter like me at this Vuelta.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is a case to be made that La Vuelta requires more consistency than any other grand tour. It is a race that is often harder and hotter than the others. One that, in seeking its own identity, adds as many summit finishes as it can and, as alluded to by Philipsen, fewer pure sprint days for the general classification (GC) riders to relax on. It is about concentrating on the quiet days and being able to respond when required; and on the inevitable bad days it\u2019s about limiting losses. There is no easing into La Vuelta.<\/p>\n
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Philipsen is zipped into the Red Jersey, although he is likely to relinquish it in the mountains on Sunday<\/p>\n
DARIO BELINGHERI\/GETTY<\/p>\n
Stage one, for example, covered 186km rolling out from the 17th-century Venaria Royal Palace in Turin to the Roman-founded city of Novara in Piedmont, northwest Italy. It was a flat stage with just one, early categorised climb but a necessary day to survive for all riders with an eye on winning the overall race because stage two won\u2019t be so forgiving as the peloton hits the first summit finish atop the 10km category-two climb into Limone Piemonte. A GC team, then, must be prepared \u2014 especially when the absence of a certain Tadej Pogacar means the fight is wide open<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, of course it\u2019s always nice to race against Tadej on one hand,\u201d Jonas Vingegaard, the two-times Tour de France<\/a> champion and the Slovenian\u2019s great rival, said before the race, \u201cbut also on the other hand, it\u2019s also nice to race where he\u2019s not sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a day on which La Vuelta favourite Vingegaard and his Visma-Lease a Bike team could usually have been forgiven for sitting back. And yet, they were near the front of the peloton all day long, sitting quietly behind the sprint teams Alpecin and Lidl-Trek. Visma kept their leader safe and signalled that they were ready for the three-week fight from the start.<\/p>\n After all, it is easy for riders and teams to lose concentration on flat days like this, easy also for a silly coming together of wheels, a slight misjudgment of a corner. To win a race, a rider has to finish it. <\/p>\n Vingegaard, in the red helmet, is safely escorted to the finish by his Visma team, who signalled their readiness to compete for the GC<\/p>\n DARIO BELINGHERI\/GETTY<\/p>\n![\"La](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\/e384e0eb-e2b7-48df-a964-bdabd79e5c0c.jpg\")
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