Vuelta a España stage 15 preview - Can Mads Pedersen get off the mark?

Key Information

• Date: Sunday, 7 September
• Start: 13:05 (CET)
• Expected Finish: 17:17 (CET)
• Stage type: Medium Mountain
• Stage length: 167.8km
• Elevation gain: 3,287m

The finish of the stage suits the likes of Mads Pedersen and Jasper Philipsen, but the main challenge for them is the difficult opening 100km, which will be difficult to control with many riders fancying their chances from the break.

You couldn’t ask for a harder start to a stage with the race starting at the foot of the category 1 Puerto A Garganta. The sprinters will be hoping that the breakaway goes early, but with an official categorisation of 16.5km, there’s a strong chance there could be a competitive and long-winded battle to get up the road. 

It’s not the steepest of climbs, averaging 5.1%, and this could make it harder for riders to break clear than if the gradients were much steeper, as more riders may be enticed to attack, believing they could make it over the climb. The toughest kilometre of the climb is around three-quarters of the way up, averaging between 9-11%. 

There’s a short descent over the summit, before some uncategorised kickers which take the riders closer to the second and final categorised climb of the stage. 

The Alto de Barbeitos is quite an unusual climb in its nature. The first 5km of the ascent are challenging with gradients between 5-9%. The gradients begin to ease from here, before a complete plateau and even a brief downhill section, before a stinging section of 0.5km at 11%, after which the climb flattens again to the categorised summit with 113.1km remaining. 

Although the categorised climb is completed for the stage, the peloton will continue to traverse over rolling terrain for the next 50km before rolling down towards the intermediate sprint.

34.7km to go is where the intermediate sprint takes place, with Mads Pedersen now holding a healthy lead of 70 points over Jonas Vingegaard.

An uncategorised drag of 4.8km at 4% follows before what is set to be a flat and fast run-in to the finish in Monforte de Lemos.

Despite leading the points classification and animating the race on plenty of occasions, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) is yet to land a stage win. On paper, this looks to be a near-perfect stage for the Dane, and based on his current shape, he should be able to manage the climbing well. The key for Pedersen will be how strong his Lidl-Trek teammates are, because they will need to find the perfect balance of controlling the stage and making things more difficult for the other fast finishers. 

Another plausible scenario is that Mads Pedersen features in the breakaway with some teammates, as the Dane should be able to make the breakaway in the early stages, while some of the sprinters get distanced from the peloton. 

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) has shown before that he can win on attritional stages such as this, like in the 2022 Tour de France on stage 15 to Carcassonne. But as is the case with the rest of the sprinters remaining, it will all depend on how much energy they have expended over the last brutal few stages. Equally, if there is a very strong breakaway clear, that could also put some of the fast men who are weaker climbers out the back.

Other fast finishers who will be hoping things knit back together in time for the finish include: Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech), Orluis Aular (Movistar), Ben Turner and Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), Arne Marit (Intermarché-Wanty), Bryan Coquard and Stanisław Aniołkowski (Cofidis), Madis Mihkels (EF Education-EasyPost) and Guillermo Thomas Silva (Caja Rural-Seguros). It will be difficult to keep things in check, and thus teams may gamble by placing riders in the breakaway, thus reducing the chances for the fast men.

If things kick off from a GC perspective in the early stages, with the distance remaining from the final categorised climb, things should calm down before the finish.

It’s also a stage potentially for the powerhouses and tacticians from the breakaway. The likes of Victor Campenaerts (Visma | Lease a Bike), Nico Denz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) and Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) come to mind, all knowing what it takes to win a Grand Tour stage on a potentially breakaway roulette day, as does stage 14 winner Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).

Based on their current hit rate, it wouldn't surprise anyone at this stage if UAE Team Emirates-XRG struck again. They have claimed seven stage wins through Jay Vine, Juan Ayuso and Soler as well as the team time trial. Ivo Oliveira has been climbing exceptionally well and could feature in the breakaway once more, as he did on stage 13, with a fast finish on him.

Other riders who could shine from a breakaway roulette include: Javier Romo and Iván García Cortina (Movistar), Bob Jungels and Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers), Matteo Sobrero and Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Fabio Christen (Q36.5), Søren Kragh Andersen and Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek), Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Jake Stewart and Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech), Brieuc Rolland and Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ), Bjorn Koerdt and Kevin Vermaerke (Picnic PostNL), Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost), Alec Segaert (Lotto), and Anders Foldager (Jayco AlUla).

A plethora of riders could succeed on a day such as this, and it feels a bit like a lottery, but experience has often proved to be valuable on these stages in the past.

Vuelta a España stage 15 favourites

⭐️⭐️⭐️ Michał Kwiatkowski
⭐️⭐️ Mads Pedersen, Nico Denz, Victor Campenaerts
⭐️ Jasper Philipsen, Ben Turner, Ethan Vernon, Orluis Aular, Marc Soler, Magnus Sheffield, Marco Frigo, Andrea Bagioli, Ivo Oliveira, Bob Jungels, Brieuc Rolland, Javier Romo, Bjorn Koerdt, Bruno Armirail

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