João Almeida BEATS Jonas Vingegaard on the Alto de l'Angliru - Red jersey unable to extend lead of UAE leader

The Alto de l'Angliru promised and it delivered. Stage 13 of the Vuelta a Espana has created some very meaningful differences, but not between the two main favourites of the race. João Almeida led almost the entire way up the Alto de l'Angliru followed only by Jonas Vingegaard, but the Visma rider did not have the legs to attack and then also did not have the legs to outpsprint the Portuguese who won his first Vuelta stage.

The queen stage? Some have called it that, but what no-one could doubt is that this stage ended in the hardest climb of the race. The first high mountain stage of this year's Vuelta had over 200 kilometers in distance and a flat start, where over two dozen riders formed the breakaway of the day. Mads Pedersen was there, to the surprise of no-one.

Visma had the clear plan to go for the stage win and set a strong pace from early on, never letting the gap grow much above the 3-minute mark, even as the riders headed into the mountainous section of the stage - where first Q36.5 took charge of the peloton, and later on on the Alto del Cordal it was UAE Team Emirates - XRG who took the lead of the peloton. A small group went off the front on the first of the climbs, with Bob Jungels pushing the pace and Mads Pedersen joining them, later on scoring the maximum points on the intermediate sprint.

On Cordal, Jungels, Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda and Nikolas Vinokourov stood out from the rest, chased by Antonio Tiberi who would go on to crash in the descent that followed. The peloton was in a very reduced number by that point, as UAE began to put on the pressure to Visma. At the start of the final climb, the front trio had to stop momentarily because of yet another protest, although no Israel - Premier Tech riders were present at the head of the race.

As the Alto de l'Angliru began UAE showed their collective strength for the first time in service of João Almeida, with Jay Vine and Felix Grossschartner splitting the group up to less than 10 riders until just under 6 kilometers to go where Almeida took the front of the group. Only Jonas Vingegaard, Sepp Kuss and Jai Hindley could follow, whilst the others followed at pace behind in groups of one and two riders. Almeida's pace would drop Hindley and Kuss with 4 kilometers to go, before the steepest ramps of the climb at 23%. Almeida lead the race for several kilometers but was unable to crack the red jersey, and on the contrary, Vingegaard was not able to attack the Portuguese to extend the gap in the overall classification.

It would then be a downhill sprint finish between the two where Vingegaard did not let go of the wheel of Almeida, who went on to win the stage. Jai Hindley - third on the day - and Felix Gall, fifth, managed to take time on Tom Pidcock, bringing the fight for the podium closer.