PREVIEW & FAVOURITES | Vuelta a España 2025 stage 15 - Breakaway bingo or can Alpecin and Lidl bring it to a sprint?

We preview stage 15 of the Vuelta a Espana, which will take place on the 7th of September. It is a hilly stage, perfectly designed for a breakaway, however the weather conditions may favour a bunch sprint in the final day of the second week. The stage is set to start at 13:10CET and finish at 17:15CET.

The final stage of the second week will be a day for the breakaway. The finale in Monforte de Lemos is flat but the start is very hilly and difficult which makes it impossible to control, and where many will look to shoot their shot.

The start of the stage is immediately a 16.5-kilometer long climb at over 5%, ideal for the climbers to move and form a breakaway. And because this is a day for the front group to succeed, we could see GC riders try to force their way into the front group to try and gain time.

There are 3000 meters of climbing and for the most part they are all in the first half of the stage. The finale, for a fact, is completely flat and with nothing to mention. But we shouldn't see a peloton fighting for victory.

Small chances of rain and some moderately strong southwestern wind. This actually will come as a headwind for the majority of the final portion of the stage, which is flat, which actually increases exponentially the chances of a sprint.

Sprint? - The wind is the only thing making this a plausible scenario. Even with the stage finale being completely flat, this is the final day of the second week where most teams - most of which barely tried their luck in several stages in the first week - are now understandably urgently trying to get stage win. The start of the stage is incredibly hard and impossible to control, and for the sprinters to survive the pace simply has to be modest which means many can attack. At this point in the race many have freedom, and I am certain many in the Top20 will try to get in the break to jump up the overall classification, racing smartly...

But with a strong headwind for many kilometers, all of a sudden it is possible to imagine the sprinter teams trying to manage the uphill part of the stage as best as possible and then commit fully to bring it back on terrain that will favour them. Lidl-Trek (Mads Pedersen, who hasn't yet won a stage actually), Alpecin-Deceuninck (Jasper Philipsen), INEOS Grenadiers (Ben Turner), Israel - Premier Tech (Ethan Vernon), Movistar (Orluis Aular)... Yes it is very viable that a few of these and maybe even more teams will try to do something if they see they couldn't get a favourable position in the breakaway formation.

Bryan Coquard, Arne Marit, Madis Mihkels and Elia Viviani would also like to see this come back to a sprint in some way shape or form, and I suspect Lotto would also be willing to step up to the chase based on how they rode the last sprint stage already a week ago.

Breakaway - But don't be mistaken, the break still IS the most likely scenario for the stage to be decided, and yes the likes of Pedersen, Turner and Aular will try to be there if they have the legs. But the stage starts with a 16-kilometer long climb, an actual mountain, and not many can handle such an effort with the best riders. So most riders in front will have to be at least decently good at this sort of terrain. It's quite possible for UAE to give some of its riders freedom, although the climbers have won stages and won't be easy for them to thrive here again. Giulio Ciccone, Javier Romo, Mikel Landa, Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda, Andrea Bagioli, Magnus Sheffield, Michal Kwiatkowski, Victor Langellotti, Egan Bernal, James Shaw, Santiago Buitrago, Damien Howson, Harold Tejada, Nicolas Vinokourov, Bob Jungels, Abel Balderstone, Eddie Dunbar and Bjorn Koerdt are men to consider in this side.

But you also need to be fast and carry some good weight usually to be able to win a stage from the front group with such a lack of climbing towards the end. So we focus on the rouleurs mostly to make the cut such as Mikkel Bjerg, Victor Campenaerts, Soren Kragh Andersen, Nico Denz, Matteo Sobrero, Filippo Ganna, Bruno Armirail, Stefan Küng, Kelland O'Brien, Huub Artz, Alec Segaert and Marco Frigo.

This is why you call it a breakaway bingo... There's no telling who will win, or even the type of rider who will win the stage.

*** Mads Pedersen, Nico Denz, Marco Frigo
** Ben Turner, Bob Jungels, Victor Campenaerts, Stefan Küng
* Orluis Aular, Jasper Philipsen, Ethan Vernon, Javier Romo, Michal Kwiatkowski, Santiago Buitrago, Matteo Sobrero, Filippo Ganna, Bruno Armirail, Alec Segaert

Pick: Nico Denz

How: Solo win from the breakaway.