{"id":91420,"date":"2025-08-25T10:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T10:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/91420\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T10:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T10:36:11","slug":"la-vuelta-drama-sees-peloton-in-scary-near-miss-as-dog-causes-heart-in-mouth-moment-thank-goodness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/91420\/","title":{"rendered":"La Vuelta drama sees peloton in scary near-miss as dog causes heart-in-mouth moment – ‘Thank goodness!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who knew dogs were cycling fans?<\/p>\n

The 2025 road season has seen several incidents of our four-legged friends getting in on the action – but the near-miss on Sunday was an example of the potential major consequences their involvement could cause.<\/p>\n

With 91.9km to go on Stage 2<\/a> of La Vuelta<\/a>, a dog nearly caused a serious incident with Lidl-Trek riders Daan Hoole and Mads Pedersen in the immediate vicinity of the near-miss.<\/p>\n

Taking a corner wide towards a footpath, a dog, being walked on its lead by the owner on the pavement nearby, suddenly leapt towards the oncoming group of riders, before it was pulled sharply to safety – happening all too late for the peloton to try and swerve.<\/p>\n

“Thank goodness that dog was on the lead there,” TNT Sports commentator Matt Stephens said. “I thought that was a rogue dog but on the lead it was.”<\/p>\n

The incident occurred as the peloton were battling for the final 10 points on offer in the intermediate sprint – and Pedersen fell away as Ethan Vernon made a late attack in the white jersey of Israel-Premier Tech.<\/p>\n

\"picture\"<\/p>\n

Highlights: Philipsen wins Stage 1 with blistering sprint to claim red leader\u2019s jersey<\/p>\n

Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n

It is not an isolated incident, with dog-related chaos becoming somewhat familiar among riders throughout the season.<\/p>\n

At the women’s Tour of Colombia in June, a dog entered the race and was 13th to cross the finish line, in an incident far more wholesome than problematic.<\/p>\n

There was yet more drama, and this time, not animal-related, later in the second stage of La Vuelta as a large portion of the peloton – involving around a dozen riders – crashed with 26km to go. <\/p>\n

Team GB and Q36.5 Pro Cycling rider Tom Pidcock was involved in the mass collision, while Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) also seemed to be among those who went down. His team-mate, Axel Zingle, looked to have come off the worst of all the riders, and had his shoulder tended to in the aftermath.<\/p>\n

\"picture\"<\/p>\n

Philipsen takes red jersey with Stage 1 after \u2018almost perfect\u2019 sprint <\/p>\n

Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n

Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) won the race last year but has not made it to the start line in 2025. Jasper Phillipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took the opening stage to claim the red jersey<\/a>, in a remarkable comeback after fracturing his collarbone and acromioclavicular during Stage 3 of the 2025 Tour de France.La Vuelta is available to watch on TNT Sports and discovery+<\/a>, alongside the remainder of the 2025 cycling season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who knew dogs were cycling fans? The 2025 road season has seen several incidents of our four-legged friends…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55,20998],"class_list":{"0":"post-91420","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","13":"tag-vuelta-a-espana"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91420","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=91420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}