A crash in the rain and a surge to the line<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, you\u2019re not going to let a stage win go by, so when I saw the opportunity, of course I\u2019ll take it,\u201d he said afterwards. \u201cSuper happy with the victory today, it\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about how he managed to catch Ciccone, he said, \u201cI just went on his wheel and, to be honest, before the corner I didn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vingegaard\u2019s 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\u2019s final kilometre. Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG) 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s unwritten rules. \u201cYou can\u2019t take advantage when a great champion is down,\u201d he said. Nevertheless, he was disappointed that he couldn\u2019t win the stage. \u201cI went for it on gut instinct, but that was maybe a bit too early,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt was too difficult to keep it up. My legs are very good, but it\u2019s a shame I didn\u2019t win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vingegaard also won his first race leader\u2019s 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\u2019s main rivals, Joao Almeida\u00a0and Juan Ayuso (both UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG) and Ben O\u2019Connor (Jayco AlUla) finished 2 seconds behind and trail him in the GC by 12 seconds.<\/p>\n
Philipsen\u2019s d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu victory<\/p>\n
It was d\u00e9j\u00e0 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u0160koda Green Jersey competition.<\/p>\n
Ethan Vernon (Israel\u2013Premier Tech) finished second, and Orluis Orlar (Movistar) finished third. More importantly, one of Philipsen\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a dream come true to be back here,\u201d Philipsen said. \u201cAfter the Tour, I was a bit down, my motivation was low, but then I got the opportunity to do the Vuelta. I didn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The question is what he\u2019s 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Results of Stage 2 of the 2025 Vuelta Ciclista a Espa\u00f1a<\/p>\n
Jonas Vingegaard, Visma\u2013Lease a Bike 3:47:14
\nGiulio Ciccone, Lidl-Trek \u201c
\nDavid Gaudu, Groupama-FDJ \u201c
\nEgan Bernal, INEOS Grenadiers \u201c
\nJo\u00e3o Almeida, UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG + 0.02
\nFelix Gall, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale \u201c
\nJai Hindley, Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013hansgrohe \u201c
\nJuan Ayuso, UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201c
\nMatteo Jorgenson, Visma\u2013Lease a Bike \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201c
\nTom Pidcock, Q36.5 \u201c<\/p>\n
General Classification after Stage 2 of the Vuelta Ciclista a Espa\u00f1a <\/p>\n
Jonas Vingegaard, Visma\u2013Lease a Bike \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a07:56:16
\nGiulio Ciccone, Lidl-Trek + 0.04
\nDavid Gaudu, Groupama-FDJ + 0.06
\nEgan Bernal, INEOS Grenadiers + 0.10
\nTom Pidcock, Q36.5 + 0.12
\nJai Hindley, Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013hansgrohe \u201d
\nSantiago Buitrago, Bahrain-Victorious \u201c
\nMatteo Jorgenson, Visma\u2013Lease a Bike \u201c
\nJuan Ayuso, UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG \u201c
\nMarc Soler, UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG \u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A crash in the rain and a surge to the line The two-time Tour de France champion survived…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-92843","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\/92843","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=92843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}