“I saw Anna van der Breggen suffering and I told myself: ‘let’s go for it’” - Paula Blasi completes astonishing final-stage GC turnaround to win La Vuelta Femenina
Cycling
Paula Blasi could hardly believe what she had just done on the Angliru. The Spanish rider delivered the biggest performance of her career on the final stage of La Vuelta Femenina 2026, cracking Anna van der Breggen on the brutal Asturian climb to overturn the general classification and seal overall victory for UAE Team ADQ.
Van der Breggen had started the day in red after her dominant win on Les Praeres, but the race changed completely once the Angliru reached its steepest slopes. Blasi first responded to the decisive GC moves, then spotted the Dutchwoman beginning to suffer and attacked into the gradients that would ultimately decide the entire race.
“It was crazy, crazy fast all day, with a lot of attacks,” Blasi said after the finish.
The final stage had been hard from the opening kilometres, with the peloton already splitting on the Alto de Santo Emiliano before a dangerous breakaway shaped the middle of the day. Liane Lippert later emerged as the strongest rider from that move, but she was eventually caught as the favourites reached the Angliru and the GC fight took over.
Blasi attacks when Van der Breggen begins to fade
Despite producing the ride that won her La Vuelta, Blasi admitted she had not felt at her best for much of the day. “The sensations were not the best. We have been racing for six days, I did not feel at my best, but the team did an incredible job and I could not be more grateful,” she said.
Once on the Angliru, the race became a pure test of pacing and survival. Marion Bunel launched the first major acceleration among the GC contenders, putting Van der Breggen under pressure. Blasi initially looked stretched herself, but she recovered, found her rhythm and then made the move that decided the race.
“The climb of the Angliru was crazy. The best thing I could do was not think about what was going to happen,” Blasi explained. “I knew the climb was going to last 50 minutes or something like that, so I simply told myself: ‘keep going’, set your rhythm and as long as you can keep following it and continue with your rhythm, you were not going to collapse.”
The key moment came on the Cueña les Cabres, where the gradients rose above 20% and Van der Breggen finally began to crack. “Then I saw Anna van der Breggen suffering and I told myself: ‘let’s go for it’,” Blasi said.
From Amstel Gold Race winner to La Vuelta champion
Blasi’s attack put her on course for the overall victory, even though the stage win eventually went elsewhere. Petra Stiasny surged past her in the final kilometres to claim a surprise solo victory on the Angliru, but Blasi kept enough of her advantage over Van der Breggen to complete one of the most dramatic final-day GC turnarounds La Vuelta Femenina has seen.
The victory continues a remarkable period for Blasi, who has now added La Vuelta Femenina to her recent Amstel Gold Race triumph.
Asked what she would have said if someone had told her two weeks ago that she would win both Amstel Gold Race and La Vuelta Femenina, Blasi’s answer was brutally simple. “You’re joking.”
After a week that began with sprint battles and red jersey changes, La Vuelta Femenina ended with a Spanish rider seizing the race on one of cycling’s most feared climbs.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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