Two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard won the second stage of the Vuelta a Espana on Sunday, prevailing in a steep climb to the finish line with a final push to take the red jersey from Jasper Philipsen.
Denmark’s Vingegaard, a member of the Visma-Lease a Bike team, shook off a crash involving several riders about 26km from the finish in the 157km ride from Alba to Limone Piemonte, and followed Lidl-Trek’s Giulio Ciccone before overtaking the Italian in the final seconds.
“It’s been a while since my last victory, I’m super happy with how I felt and how the team did today. Also super happy to have the red jersey,” Vingegaard said.
David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) finished third after his teammate Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet, who won the Vuelta’s mountains classification in 2020, withdrew from the race following a crash during a descent in wet conditions.
Vingegaard, one of the favourites coming into the race, was happy to remain in the peloton as Gal Glivar, Jakub Otruba, Liam Slock and Sinuhe Fernandez formed a breakaway pack, taking a two-minute lead from the rest on mostly flat terrain.
As Martin-Guyonnet became the first rider to quit the race, Vingegaard also fell along with several others at a roundabout.
“I went down pretty hard, but it seems like I didn’t hurt myself too bad. I have a bit of bruises, but I think because it was so slippery, I was sliding more so I didn’t really get any bad road rash or anything,” Vingegaard said.
Once the road turned dry going into the final 10km ascent, the peloton began to reduce the gap to the leading group and caught them halfway up the climb.
Andrea Bagioli tried to set the pace for his teammate Ciccone in the final sprint, but Vingegaard followed closely before making his final move.
Belgium’s Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who finished 155th in the stage, retained the green jersey for the points classification.
The Vuelta continues on Monday with a 139km ride from San Maurizio Canavese to Ceres. (Reporting by
