QUOTES | Vingegaard prioritises defence, Almeida plays down criticisms & Pidcock claims "there's more to play for than the podium" before Vuelta stage 20

The 2025 Vuelta a Espana reaches its decisive moment today with the penultimate stage set to tackle five categorised climbs before the brutal summit finish on the Bola del Mundo (12.4km at 8.6%).

Jonas Vingegaard carries the Red Jersey into the final mountain finish under pressure from João Almeida, who knows this is his last chance to overturn the Dane. Meanwhile, Tom Pidcock begins the day in third overall with a breakthrough first Grand Tour podium finish in sight, but faces a fierce challenge from Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe’s Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari in the battle for that honour. Ahead of a potentially explosive showdown, here’s what the key contenders had to say.

Vingegaard starts the day with 44 second lead over Almeida and it seems protecting that advantage, rather than extending it, will be the main goal of the Dane and his Team Visma | Lease a Bike teammates.

"Of course, my primary aim is to defend myself. If the stage win is within reach, I’ll try for that too, but to start with, it’s really just about defending myself today," Vingegaard said in quotes collected by TV2 from the start line. "We’ll try to defend and ride a bit more cautiously."

For Almeida, much of the talk this race has been about his teammates and whether or not they have supported the Portuguese well enough. This issue raised its head once again on stage 19 when a sleeping UAE allowed Vingegaard to pick up 4 potentially vital bonus seconds unopposed. Almeida himself though, is keen to play down the drama of that particular situation.

"A big day ahead. Hopefully we are good and we can try to fight. 44 seconds is not much to be honest. I think everything is open and we need to do our best," he told TNT Sports. "We messed up [yesterday] for position but I was not feeling great, so I don't think I could have gained those four seconds. I don't think the Vuelta's going to be decided by four seconds. If it does I'm going to regret but I don't think it will. We have one last day today to try to do something."

Whilst securing 3rd spot seems to be the widely expected aim for Pidcock on this penultimate stage, the Brit himself has seemingly not ruled out the overall win just yet.

"I'm pretty good. It's definitely a new stress to deal with, but I feel good," he told TNT Sports. "It's definitely easier to be in a defensive situation than attack. There's more to play for than the podium, but that's the priority. It's a big gap to Jona,s but never say never."