"I felt like I wasn’t on my limit" – Jonas Vingegaard poised to win La Vuelta 2025 after squashing João Almeida’s stage 20 assault

Jonas Vingegaard all but secured overall victory at the 2025 Vuelta a Espana on Saturday, conquering the fearsome slopes of the Bola del Mundo to seal a statement stage win on the penultimate day of the race.

The Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader, already in the red jersey, showed his class on the decisive final climb by holding firm against repeated accelerations from João Almeida and Jai Hindley, before delivering the knockout blow inside the last kilometre.

For Vingegaard, it was a victory steeped in relief as much as joy. After a series of gritted-teeth performances earlier in the race, he admitted that Saturday was the first time he felt his condition had returned to something like its peak. “Of course, I wanted to win in Bilbao and at L’Angliru, but Bola del Mundo is also something special,” Vingegaard reflected at the finish. “To be honest, I started to feel a bit better today, better than the previous mountain top finishes, so I’m happy with how things have turned for me today and with how the team has done over the last three weeks. The team has been amazing and I couldn’t have done it without them.”

The battle on the Bola del Mundo had looked finely poised as Almeida and Hindley took turns turning the screw on the steepest ramps. Yet while Vingegaard admitted it was far from easy, he revealed he still had something in reserve. “I wouldn’t say I was comfortable following the pace set by João and Jai, but at least I felt like I wasn’t on my limit yet, so I felt I had a good chance of winning the stage. At one point, I just decided: ‘Now I’m gonna try.’ Immediately I got a gap. Then the last few hundred metres were incredibly hard.”

The way Vingegaard distanced his rivals – surging clear with just over a kilometre remaining and refusing to look back – was a champion’s flourish. While the Dane already looked unassailable in the general classification, the manner of his stage 20 success silenced any lingering doubts and offered a reminder of why he is considered one of the best Grand Tour riders of his generation.

Behind him, teammate Sepp Kuss celebrated his birthday with second place on the stage, underlining Visma’s dominance. Hindley rounded out the podium in third, while Almeida had to settle for damage limitation after his earlier efforts failed to crack the Dane.

With only Sunday’s largely ceremonial finale into Madrid to come, Vingegaard is poised to wrap up his first-ever Vuelta title – and a third Grand Tour crown to sit alongside his two Tour de France victories. “Of course there’s also tomorrow but normally there will be no changes,” he said with a smile. “Hopefully we keep things like that and we make it to the finish with the red jersey.”