“Should the race be called off?” – Bruyneel and Martin question Vuelta a Espana safety

Stage 16 of the Vuelta a España should have been remembered as the day Egan Bernal confirmed his long-awaited return to the top step of WorldTour racing. The Colombian, who nearly lost his life in a training crash three years ago, surged past Mikel Landa in the final metres and crossed what became the finish line. It was his first win at a Grand Tour since 2021, a milestone that seemed almost impossible at the lowest points of his recovery.

Instead, Bernal’s triumph unfolded in silence, without a victory salute, podium ceremony, or the roar of a summit crowd. Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the final climb to Castro de Herville, forcing organizers to cut the stage short eight kilometers from its intended finish. Whilst the protesters need to have a platform to express their voice, and there are certainly more important things in the world than cycling, it has now become a true question of rider safety. The result of stage 16 was another day of disruption, following the neutralisation of stage 11 in Bilbao, and a fresh round of questions about whether this Vuelta can continue safely to Madrid.

“Listen, obviously it's great for Egan Bernal to win the stage, right? After all the trouble this guy has had in the last years after his horrible accident to win a stage. Of course, it's not the same feeling. You know, there's no victory salute. He doesn't cross the finish line first where all the people are. There's no podium. But it's a win,” Johan Bruyneel said on The Move podcast.

Martin, his co-host, noted the same sense of anticlimax. “Kind of a little bit of a wet blanket of a finish, Johan, with the protest,” he said.

For Bernal, the win still mattered. “I mean, somebody had to win and Egan Bernal won it. So, I'm really happy for him to have him win again,” Bruyneel added. But the way it was achieved, sprinting to an improvised banner at the bottom of a climb, left cycling fans unsatisfied.

Remember, Landa too was coming back from a back injury, one he suffered on the first stage of the Giro this year. Both he and Bernal have had to claw their way back from nasty injuries, and would have been hoping to duel it out all the way to the finish line.

“There was a lot, a lot, a lot, and it was basically impossible for the organization and even the extra police to keep it under control. So I think they made a very wise decision to have the finish at the bottom,” Bruyneel explained of the organizers’ call. “At first I was thinking maybe they're going to take the times and again have no stage winner. This time they did it differently.”

Bernal and Landa had distanced the breakaway on the penultimate ramp, only to see the finale vanish. Riders hauled themselves over 17–18% gradients, fans packed the slopes, but there was no true summit. “The riders were zigzagging over the road. It was 17–18%,” Bruyneel said of the brutal penultimate climb that effectively decided the day.

Among those who impressed before the protest disruption were Nico Denz, who nearly held his own against the climbers, and Groupama-FDJ’s young talents. “Nico Denz almost won a mountain stage. Pretty impressive,” Martin said. “The FDJ rider Brieuc Rolland… this is the second time I believe he's come close. He got third back on stage 12 if you recall. Super impressive ride from this guy. He's 22 years old.”

Bruyneel also highlighted another new name: “Also there's this other rider on Groupama, Braz Afonso … today he was actually with Egan Bernal and Mikel Landa until he had a puncture.”

In the general classification, Jonas Vingegaard’s hold on the red jersey continued, though even his day had drama. A mechanical forced him onto a teammate’s bike in a repeat of a famous incident from the 2022 Tour de France, although this time he and the team handled it more smoothly.

“Jonas Vingegaard has a problem with his bike, a flat or mechanical. He takes one from a teammate just like the Tour de France in 2022. Ben Tulett with an incredibly smooth dismount and then pushing Vingegaard… he gets back in pretty well and then rides that bike to the finish line,” Martin said.

“We've seen him do that again where he just doesn't seem to care about riding someone else's bike and is able to do it well enough that it's not a problem,” he added.

Despite the hiccup, the Dane remains in command with a total time of 61:16:35. His closet challenge, Almeida, is hot on his heels and sits just 48 seconds back. Tom Pidcock holds third at 2:38, Jai Hindley fourth at 3:10, and Giulio Pellizzari fifth at 4:21. Felix Gall, Matthew Riccitello, Sepp Kuss, Torstein Træen, and Junior Lecerf round out the top ten.

Visma’s strength in depth continues to be a theme. Kuss has climbed into eighth overall at 5:46, while Jorgenson is eleventh at 8:52. The team’s control contrasts sharply with the mounting cracks in Almeida’s UAE squad, but the Portuguese rider is still in with a chance of the red jersey.

UAE once again left their leader isolated. “He didn't need to be in there. They don't need another stage win. What they need to focus on now is how to put the pressure on Jonas and on Visma,” Bruyneel said of Marc Soler’s decision to join the break.

“They're down to six riders,” he pointed out, after illness and crashes reduced Almeida’s support. The Portuguese contender has been repeatedly exposed in crunch moments. “From now on, nobody goes in the break. We stay with our leader and we're there with him,” Bruyneel suggested.

“But Soler should always be in the group… He was in there for the stage win,” he continued. “I'm still… I still don't know what's going on. Why do they let these guys keep going in the breakaways?”

The repeated long-range attacks have left Almeida vulnerable. “The breakaways have become a problem. They're affecting the life of UAE,” Bruyneel concluded.

If tactical debates were once the focus, the protests have shifted the entire conversation. Safety and security now dominate.

“Should the race be called off? If they can't provide a safe course, should they just cancel it?” Martin asked. Bruyneel’s response was blunt: “I mean, it's an option. It's an option. If the security of the riders is in danger and you can't guarantee it, there's not that many options in my opinion.”

“There was already a lot of police today and still they couldn't keep it under control,” he added. “I'm just thinking that this movement is going to get bigger and bigger.”

The possibility of more disruptions looms large. “Tomorrow is another uphill finish. Same kind of area, same kind of roads like today. If they couldn't control it today, what is going to stop the same people from doing the same tomorrow?” Bruyneel asked.

Time trials may be even easier targets. “There's nothing easier to disrupt than a time trial because the riders are sitting ducks out there,” he warned.

The abrupt relocation of the finish line created logistical chaos. “It's two vehicles per team that are in the race and all the other vehicles are on top. They couldn't make it down. I mean, it's a total mess,” Bruyneel said.

Even the broadcast product suffered. “The problem with their TV programming is they're turning the race on after everything's happened and then the last part gets cancelled. So it's the worst possible TV product you could have,” Martin said.

The underlying fragility of road cycling is now stark. “A lot of pro cycling is dependent on communion between fans and riders. Like, please don't storm the course because there's not really anything we can do to stop you if you want to,” Martin observed.

Bruyneel looked ahead with a warning: “We're going to end up doing circuit races in the future, Spencer. Something that's completely controllable.”

The GC remains tight. Almeida still has a chance at red, Hindley is within striking distance of the podium, and Pidcock continues to ride his best Grand Tour of his career. Yet the racing feels increasingly secondary to the uncertainty of whether stages can be run to their planned conclusions.

“It just puts a damper on the race when they're like, ‘Well, I don't know what would have happened today. We have no idea and we'll never find out,’” Martin said.

Madrid still promises a grand finale, but as Bruyneel reminded listeners, each successful protest emboldens the next. “Tomorrow is another uphill finish… what is going to stop the same people from doing the same tomorrow?”

For Bernal, Stage 16 was a long-awaited return to the winner’s circle. For the race as a whole, it was another reminder that the 2025 Vuelta a España risks being defined less by its climbs than by the questions swirling off the road.