Maxim van Gils upsets the odds to deny UAE on stage 1 of the 2025 Vuelta a Andalucia

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.