The road to victory in the 2025 Vuelta a España is seemingly paved with Visma yellow as Jonas Vingegaard attempts to grab his first General Classification win at the race, which enters its decisive final week on Tuesday.
To date, the tour has managed to produce nine stage winners from the 23 teams competing, including Visma–Lease a Bike’s Vingegaard, Alpecin–Deceuninck’s Jasper Philipsen, Groupama–FDJ’s David Gaudu, Ineos Grenadiers’ Ben Turner, UAE Team Emirates XRG’s Jay Vine, Juan Ayuso, João Almeida, plus Marc Soler, and Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen.
But it is two-time Tour de France champion Vingegaard who is currently holding onto the lead in the General Classification (GC) standings, and it remains to be seen whether anyone can challenge the Dane for the final Grand Tour of the year.
Pedersen snatches stage 15 victory
Sunday’s stage 15 saw Pedersen sprint to victory, outpacing Orluis Aular of Movistar and Marco Frigo of Bahrain Victorious to secure his first win of this year’s race.
Pedersen attributed the success to his team-mates as they pulled him along in the stage’s large breakaway.
“I have to say it makes the victory even sweeter, the way the team rode today”, he told the official website of Vuelta a España.
“In the end, it makes it even nicer to win. Everyone knew our plan, everyone was looking at us, and still we succeeded … absolutely incredible.”
The peloton, containing Vingegaard and the other main GC contenders, only managed to finish 13 and a half minutes behind Pederson.
The Danish rider’s stage win also boosts his chances of grabbing the green jersey, which is given to the rider with the most overall points.
Thanks to Pedersen winning on Sunday, he now trails Vingegaard by 98 points in that contest.
Vingegaard ready for ‘big fight’
Vingegaard, it must be said, has cruised through a number of grueling stages to wear red by the end of the second week.
He leads the GC standings with a time of 57:35:33 – 48 seconds ahead of his closest competitor, Almeida.
Q36.5 Pro Cycling’s Tom Pidcock is third overall, 2:38 minutes behind Vingegaard.
The UAE, however, dominate the team standings after racking up a host of stage wins.
Vingegaard acknowledged the success of the UAE team over the last two weeks, saying he can only “respect what they do”.
Yet, he also struck a decidedly untroubled tone in an interview with reporters, according to Cyclingnews.
“We are only focused on what we are doing, and we have two stage wins and the leader’s jersey,” he stated.
“So we can be happy with what we have too. I’m in a good place.”
Almeida won the race’s most prestigious summit finish on the Angliru on Friday, beating Vingegaard into second place and fueling questions about the Dane’s quest for the red jersey.
However, despite the concerns about his form, Vingegaard remains ready for the battle ahead, declaring: “I’m expecting a big fight for the red jersey.”
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La Vuelta ignites protest tensions
The tour, which started on August 23 in Turin, Italy, has not passed without incident, with protests gathering at some of the stages’ finish lines and throughout the route.
Tensions notably ignited during stage 11 in Bilbao, when race organisers had to neutralise the stage and leave the race without a winner after a group of protestors waving Palestine flags had gathered at the finish line.
Sunday’s stage also met with some incidents after a protestor ran towards a group of riders and slipped on the side of the road, which caused Spanish cyclist Javier Romo of Movistar to fall from his bike with 56 kilometres remaining.
Police subsequently arrested 10 protestors for public disorder offences while extra barriers were installed to allow riders to finish the day’s action.
La Vuelta returns for stage 16 after Monday’s rest day, kick-starting an all-out battle for victory that will culminate on September 14 in the Spanish capital of Madrid.
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Adam Peaker 
Newsjustnews writers 
Carmela Calling