Vuelta a Espana 2025 Stage 20 Results | Jonas Vingegaard seals Red Jersey win with a flourish as he solos atop Bola del Mundo

Jonas Vingegaard is set to win the 2025 Vuelta a Espana! On the final summit finish of the race on stage 20, the Danish leader of Team Visma | Lease a Bike sealed the GC win in style by taking victory on the slopes of the Bola del Mundo.

The penultimate stage of the race burst into life right from the flag, with attacks firing from the very first climb of the day. Filippo Ganna and Egan Bernal were the first to show their colours for INEOS Grenadiers, briefly edging clear before the peloton reeled them back.

With so much at stake on the decisive mountain stage, the fight for the breakaway was ferocious. A large move finally coalesced on the slopes of the Puerto de la Paradilla, the second climb of the day, with some 35 riders prising open a slender advantage over the bunch. Notably, neither UAE Team Emirates - XRG nor Team Visma | Lease a Bike were represented, meaning the Red Jersey group had every incentive to keep the leash tight.

The day’s main escape was a heavyweight selection, stacked with quality climbers and rouleurs alike. Among the big names present were Giulio Ciccone, Julien Bernard and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Egan Bernal and Brandon Rivera (INEOS Grenadiers), Mikel Landa (Soudal - Quick-Step), Santiago Buitrago and Jack Haig (Bahrain - Victorious), Lorenzo Fortunato, Fausto Masnada and Harold López (XDS Astana Team), plus stage-hunters such as Jesús Herrada, Stefan Küng, Bruno Armirail and Rudy Molard.

At 130km to go the break had carved out a lead of around a minute, with UAE controlling the tempo behind through Mikkel Bjerg. Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe soon offered assistance, making it clear that both teams wanted to keep the race under heavy pressure.

Mads Pedersen was the first casualty from the front, slipping back to the peloton as the pace intensified. Still, the leaders pressed on and nudged their margin out to 1:30 before the next test of the day, the Alto del León (6.9km at 7.5%). With 110km remaining, UAE and Red Bull remained at the head of the bunch, keeping the gap pegged at around a minute and a quarter.

After the summit of the Alto del León, with 90km to go, the leaders had stretched their buffer back out towards two minutes. The race then entered a long, flatter section of road, but UAE and Bora were relentless in their chase, refusing to give the break any real freedom.

Sure enough, by the 70km mark the advantage was trimmed down again to 1:25. With the peloton locked in control, attention turned to the looming climbs: around 20km remained before the riders would face the punishing slopes of the Puerto de Navacerrada, the penultimate ascent of the stage.

As soon as the Navacerrada began, the race broke apart on all sides. Riders were shelled from both the breakaway and the peloton, the steep gradients taking a heavy toll. Red Bull - BORA set the tempo in the GC group, while UAE’s Juan Ayuso also moved forward to increase the pressure.

The front group was reduced to around ten riders, with the likes of Julien Bernard, Ciccone, Landa, Bernal, Jardi Van der Lee, Armirail, López, Afonso, Dunbar, Aparicio and Jan Hirt among the survivors. With one kilometre left to climb, their advantage was shaved down to just a minute over a red jersey group whittled to around only 20 riders.

At the summit, Jay Vine secured the mountains jersey outright after Jonas Vingegaard failed to score points, ensuring he would finish the Vuelta as the King of the Mountains.

Into the closing 20km, the battle at the front took clearer shape: Bernal, Ciccone and Landa pressed on from the breakaway, holding just over a minute on the red jersey group. But the drama was far from over. With 15km to go, the stage was thrown into chaos as protestors blocked the road. The riders managed to thread their way past the disruption, but team cars and the convoy were halted, causing confusion behind. A small chasing group was forced to stop completely before eventually being released.

Up front though, racing continued. Mikel Landa pressed on alone, but he was quickly caught as Giulio Ciccone launched a fresh attack and went clear on his own. Behind, Bernal and Jardi Van der Lee gave chase, 15 seconds adrift, while the peloton hovered around a minute further back, still marshalled by a strong UAE squad with five riders intact.

Into the last 7km, Landa and Ciccone were clear together still around 40 seconds ahead of a peloton now led by Vine in his polka-dot jersey. In the GC group, Giulio Pellizzari was notably starting to struggle too, boosting Tom Pidcock's podium hopes and pricking the ears of Matthew Riccitello in the fight for the White Jersey.

By 5km to go, Landa and Ciccone's advantage was down to just 25 seconds. Still, Vine led the Red Jersey group with Joao Almeida patiently waiting for the right time to attack Jonas Vingegaard. Just outside 3km to go, Landa and Ciccone were then swallowed up. So fierce was Vine's pace setting however, that he was even starting to distance Almeida.

Despite Almeida's hard work though, the Portuguese's diesel engine couldn't distance his main rivals. It was instead a counter move by Jai Hindley that made the real damage among the favourites with the former Giro winner putting Pidcock under pressure in the fight for the podium. With 1.5km to go though, the quintet of Hindley, Vingegaard, Almeida, Pidcock and birthday boy Sepp Kuss were still all together.

With just over a kilometre left, Vingegaard himself then came to the front for the first time and immediately the Dane got a gap. That gap proved telling too as he rode away from the rest of his rivals all the way to the stage win, sealing the first Red Jersey triumph of his illustrious career in style. Behind, Kuss made it a Visma one-two with Hindley taking 3rd.