
Jonas Vingegaard cleared the last major hurdle in his quest to win a first Vuelta a España title when he won the critical mountain stage to the Bola del Mundo summit. The Visma-Lease a Bike rider finished 11 seconds clear of teammate Sepp Kuss to extend his overall advantage on main rival João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) to a minute and 16 seconds ahead of Sunday's final stage into Madrid.
Having first tracked rival João Almeida on the early pitches of the super steep concrete road that rose sharply towards the TV masts at the finish, Vingegaard then followed an attack by Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe). With 1,200 very acute metres remaining, Vingegaard made his move, accelerating past the Australian and immediately getting a gap on the other GC favorites.