PREVIEW & FAVOURITES | Vuelta a España 2025 stage 9 - Breakaway bingo or will Jonas Vingegaard break GC stalemate?

Stage 9 of the Vuelta a Espana is the final day of the first week and it features another summit finish at the Valdezcaray Ski Resort. But will we have a GC fight? Will the breakaway win the third mountain stage in a row? We preview the stage ahead where Jonas Vingegaard's mindset may change everything.

After the special day for the sprinters we return to 'Javier Guillén territory' as the peloton tackles a stage that is mostly flat and then features one individual climb as a summit finish. But this could be a day for the breakaway as the ramps up to the Valdecaray Ski Resort are not too difficult - overall it's a very open day that can fit different kinds of riders.

The day is 195 kilometers long with 3000 meters of ascent, so although it's uncategorized, we do see some rolling roads throughout the day that will not go unnoticed by the riders. The final climb is 13.3 kilometers long at 5.2%. The first half averages around 6 or 7% which makes it possible to attack, but the gradients are very consistent and never very high.

The final kilometers of the climb flatten out quite a bit and so any successful attack to make a difference has to come early on.

We should have some crosswind on the final climb and if felt at all, we will have small tailwind throughout a lot of the day leading up to the climb.

GC Fight - I haven't hidden my dissatisfaction towards this stage design. A stage finishing the first week has everything to not really provide spectacle because the entire stage is virtually flat with nothing to mention and then we've got a long but shallow final climb, which will be ridden at speed an where creating gaps is very hard. Put in the mix a Jonas Vingegaard (the man to beat) that does not want to attack until we get to the hardest stages, and we have a stalemate scheduled.

Vingegaard does not want to and does not need to attack this climb, he rode the entire Tour de France and so it makes all sense to try and preserve his freshness as much as possible, and there's no reason to burn through teammates on a stage that is very hard to make any difference. Besides, Visma do not want to take the jersey away from Torstein Traeen, whose Bahrain team is more than happy to keep and work for in the next few days. I believe we'll have again around 15 or 20 riders going through the finish together, both João Almeida and Giulio Ciccone might have legs to distance the rest but they aren't getting collaboration from the Dane and so it's not going to be easy to see them fully commit to an attack. In a sprint, in the small chance the peloton fights for victory, Tom Pidcock and Egan Bernal could also stand a chance.

Breakaway - The breakaway formation should be the most exciting phase of the stage, and we could see a lot of attacks from different kinds of riders looking to succeed. I expect to see a lot of rouleurs to do it, but they would then need to attack before the final climb to take the win. Ultimately it's going to be about which climbers make it to the breakaway. In 2012 it was Simon Clarke who won here, so classics specialists or puncheurs also stand a chance.

In the climbers section we have UAE who can go get another stage win if they can get Jay Vine or Juan Ayuso again the breakaway; riders like David Gaudu or Antonio Tiberi who can win under regular conditions but that would take them back to a good day; Puncheurs like INEOS' Michal Kwiatkowski, Victor Langellotti, Ben Turner or even Filippo Ganna...

And adding to that Marco Frigo, Harold Martín López, Harold Tejada, Chris Harper, Javier Romo, Jan Hirt, Andrea Bagioli, Mauri Vansevenant, David de la Cruz, Damien Howson, Eddie Dunbar, Carlos Verona, Luca Vergallitto and Wout Poels are all riders to take into consideration.

*** Marco Frigo, Jay Vine
** Harold Tejada, Andrea Bagioli, David Gaudu
* Jonas Vingegaard, Giulio Ciccone, João Almeida, Egan Bernal, Tom Pidcock, Harold Martín López, Juan Ayuso, Chris Harper, Antonio Tiberi, Michal Kwiatkowski

Pick: Harold Tejada

How: Solo win from the breakaway.