Maxim van Gils upsets the odds to deny UAE on stage 1 of the 2025 Vuelta a Andalucia
Cycling
Maxim van Gils has taken the win on stage 1 of the 2025 Vuelta a Andalucia, sprinting to the victory ahead of UAE duo Tim Wellens and Pavel Sivakov from a three-man sprint, after a frantic opening day immediately kicked off the general classification fight.
Seven riders formed the breakaway for the majority of the day. Most notable among them were Andreas Leknessund of Uno-X Mobility and Alan Jousseaume of Team TotalEnergies. It was Leknessund who proved to be the strongest of the attackers too, but as the peloton started to break up behind heading towards the final 30km, the likes of Pavel Sivakov were hunting down the Norwegian leader.
On the final categorised climb of the day, Sivakov was joined in the chase by UAE Team Emirates - XRG teammate Tim Wellens and Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe's Maxim van Gils, with the trio catching and immediately dropping Leknessund at around 17km to go. On the descent, there was a momentary scare for Van Gils as the Belgian pushed too hard and went off road. Thankfully there was no major disaster, and Van Gils was able to link back up with Wellens and Sivakov shortly after.
Behind the leading trio, Tom Pidcock was leading a chase group of five that also included Clement Berthet, Steff Cras, Marc Soler and Lekenessund. The gap between leaders and chasers was hovering around the 15-20 second mark though. As the cooperation started to break down between the leaders heading into the final 3km, UAE attempted to play the numbers game with Tim Wellens launching an attack on a number of occasions. Van Gils was aware though, and managed to follow, quickly on the wheel of any counters by Sivakov too.
Inside the final kilometre, the leading was still locked together. In the fight for the stage win, Sivakov dropped away quickly, and in a proper battle for victory it was Van Gils who took victory ahead of Wellens.
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- Agreed. He was dropped hard on every other climb. Without the run up he might have not been in the final sprint. And why not try it? Kudos for him for trying to make the race rather than just following.mij06-04-2025
- To me it seemed like an attempt to get through the climb closer to the front, since his burst power was lacking. If he starts earlier he can take the hill slower and still not be too far behind by the top. It kept him in that group of 4, where he might have been dropped had they all stayed together to the bottom of the climb. Who knows, though. I’m just guessing.RidesHills06-04-2025
- No idea, there have been suggestions something is amiss, maybe he doesn’t have all his mind connected at some moments, I’d definitely do a thorough review of his consciousness under effort.Mistermaumau06-04-2025
- Pogacar and van der Poel have won the last 6 Monuments, and 11 of the last 13 Monuments. There’s never been domination like this by two riders, and we are in our third year of it. (Merckx and de Vlaeminck won a total of 30 Monuments between 1966 and 1979, but others were winning along the way, as well.)RidesHills06-04-2025
- Yes but what was the dumb effort by Van Aert to drop Pogacar, Vanderpoel and Pederson about.? Just showing face? If he had stayed on the wheels and not wasted energy, he might have got on the podium in the runners up sprint.Cyclingsbestfan06-04-2025
- What a loser.
santiagobenites06-04-2025 - I agree about the sprint or drilling it on the flat. Lighter rider versus heavier rider. Inertia is the natural tendency of objects in motion to stay in motion (e.g the heavier riders momentum) and objects at rest to stay at rest, unless a force causes the velocity to change.Cyclingsbestfan06-04-2025
- Definitely, he is a great rider, and this season might even be as good as last (in a perfect world, a few more Monuments, a Tour-Vuelta double, and the Worlds again), but he has to do this for years on end to compare to Merckx’s results from roughly 69 to 74. Yes, times have changed, yes competition is different, yes speeds are higher, and so on, but let’s let Pogacar be Pogacar and give him time. We can evaluate his career when he retires. Until then, let’s enjoy it while we have it.RidesHills06-04-2025
- Excellent work and show from all of them, glad to see van Aert got back to shape in time. Bring on P-RMistermaumau06-04-2025
- All this seems right but the problem is that two riders of differing weight going at the same speed will have different power and they will also have different power per weight yet are both (in theory, i.e. when trying their hardest) at their max,which means the lighter one is proportionally losing more to the wind (working harder to overcome), the heavier one proportionally losing more to rolling resistance and bounce. The extremely difficult calculations to know which of the 2-3 causes the bigger effect under what exact conditions is what makes it impossible to say who will benefit most in many situations when they aren’t different enough to make it obvious, i.e. a puny climber of 50kg vs a sprinter of 80kg on either the flat or a mountain.Mistermaumau06-04-2025