'There's nowhere to hide' - Vingegaard braces for a different Vuelta on Angliru

The mountain is the same, but the circumstances change. When Jonas Vingegaard first raced up the Angliru in 2020, he rode firmly in the service of his leader Primoz Roglic, who was en route to the second of his four Vuelta a España victories.

On his second time around, Vingegaard found himself hemmed in by team duties, though he and Roglic did distance teammate and eventual overall winner Sepp Kuss in the final part of the climb, with the Dane taking second on the stage.

On Friday, there is no debate about Vingegaard’s status. He returns to the Angliru in the red jersey and as the lone leader for Visma | Lease a Bike, mindful that the Vuelta’s entry into Asturias marks a new phase in the race.

“I think tomorrow is going to be one of the most important days for the GC,” Vingegaard said on Thursday after finishing safely in the main peloton. “The Angliru is a very hard climb, there’s nowhere you can hide on this climb, so you really have to do everything you can. It’s really an iconic climb.”

Vingegaard is 50 seconds ahead of João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and 56 seconds up on Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) in the overall standings. He has already won two stages on this Vuelta, at Limone Piemonte and Valdezcaray, but he is mindful that a different challenge awaits. “So far the finishing climbs have been a bit easier,” he said. “From tomorrow, it will be way harder.”

Vingegaard played a straight bat when asked about his memories of his last visit to the Angliru in a Vuelta that surely had a bittersweet taste. He was probably the strongest man in the race, but his teammate Kuss had already moved into the red jersey.

“It was a special day, we did one-two-three and the whole Vuelta was special because we did one-two-three in Madrid,” Vingegaard said. “I have a lot of good memories from the Angliru, also from my first time doing it when I was working for Primoz there, so hopefully I can also make good memories this year.”

The bike race itself has felt incidental over the past 24 hours after stage 11 in Bilbao was halted 3km from the finish due to protests against Israel-Premier Tech’s presence in the race. Human rights activists have demonstrated throughout this Vuelta in protest at Israel’s ongoing invasion of Gaza. 

Following the stoppage in Bilbao, Vuelta technical director Kiko García suggested that only Israel-Premier Tech’s withdrawal could ensure the race would continue to Madrid without further interruption. Israel-Premier Tech issued a statement on Wednesday evening outlining that they would remain in the Vuelta. 

As the leader of the Vuelta and thus as a de facto spokesperson for the peloton, Vingegaard was asked for his thoughts on the protests in his post-stage press conference on Thursday.

“What are my thoughts? I think of course what happened yesterday shouldn’t happen, but I also think we shouldn’t keep giving it attention because to be honest, there was really no problem today,” he said. “If we keep giving them attention, then they will get what they want. In my opinion, we shouldn’t give them more attention.”

The United Nations has reported that more than 58,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since Israel invaded Gaza in 2023 in response to the October 7 terrorist attacks, which killed more than 700 people.

In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared that an “entirely man-made” famine is taking place in Gaza due to the Israel government’s refusal to allow sufficient humanitarian aid into the region.