Victory for Jonas Vingegaard! Dane survives mass crash and wins uphill sprint against Giulio Ciccone

Stage 2 of the Vuelta a España saw the climbers go head-to-head in a summit finish but one where the stage was always going to be decided in a sprint. The strongest climber in the race still had the best punch in the final meters, and Jonas Vingegaard took his first World Tour win of the year in Limone.

The stage had a very calm start and most of the day was slow and cheerful in the peloton. Liam Slock, Jakub Otruba, Sinuhé Ferández and Gal Glivar formed the front group and rode their way to the plains of eastern Italy before reaching the final 10-kilometer climb to Limone - which in reality only had 2 difficult kilometers.

There was little to mention until the final hour of racing, when the rain began to fall and riders began to go down. Outside of the TV coverage, Guillaume Martin crashed and abandoned, the first withdrawal of the race, with Magnus Sheffield also going down soon after. But with 26 kilometers to go there was a serious crash with around a dozen men going down in a roundabout including Jonas Vingegaard and most of the Visma team - with Tom Pidcock also involved in the crash.

The peloton slowed down however and most riders quickly regained position in the peloton. The peloton then slowly brough in the breakaway, Slock was the final rider to be caught with 5.8 kilometers to go. The final climb had started but the gradients were very shallow and it was mostly a leadout battle until the final 2 kilometers of the climb.

Lidl-Trek entered it in front, then Giulio Pellizzari led the way into the final sprint. Marc Soler tried to surprise with 500 meters to go. Felix Gall launched the final sprint first and for a long time it seemed as if Giulio Ciccone was going to escape with a home victory, but in the very last meters Vingegaard managed to take a few meters on the Italian and took the win in a photo-finish sprint. David Gaudu finished a surprising third, with small splits behind.