Radprofi João Almeida won the show of strength with Jonas Vingegaard at the Vuelta and triumphed on the notorious Angliru. The Portuguese prevailed on the extremely difficult increase in Asturias in the target sprint against the Danes, which successfully claimed the red jersey of the overall leader. “This is a very special victory, I can’t believe it yet. That is the toughest increase in the world,” said Almeida after his first stage victory at this year’s tour of Spain, the sixth for the UAE team Emirates-XRG.
In the overall ranking, Almeida shortened his gap to the two-time tour champion Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike) by four to 46 seconds. The Australian Jai Hindley (+28 seconds) came third on Friday from the German team Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
The largely peaceful cycling spectacle was overshadowed by a renewed assault pro-Palestinian demonstrator. Around 12 km before the finish, activists at the foot of the Angliru blocked the route and forced a small group of outliers to stop. The outliers-none of them from the Israel Prime Minister Tech-lost a large part of their forefront.
On the 12.4 km long, an average of 9.8 and up to 23 percent steep climb, Vingegaard and Almeida were around five km before the finish. In the steepest area of the narrow street, even the two mountain specialists hardly drove more than step speed. Almeida acted almost the entire final phase from the front, Vingegaard could not or did not want to attack. Even on the last sloping meters, the Danish favorite could no longer avoid.
In addition to the Lagos de Covadonga, the Angliru is the most formative increase in Vuelta-although it was only in 1999 it was in the program of the Spain tour. At that time, the Vuelta organizations wanted to create a counterpart to the famous Alpe d’Huez tour scene. The first winner was Spaniard José María Jiménez, who died just four years later, before Vingegaard recently won his teammate Primoz Roglic in 2023.
On Saturday there is another difficult mountain arrival at the Lagos de Somiedo. The Vuelta traditionally ends in Madrid on September 14th.
