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A winning attack with 7.6 kilometres to go on the Col du Tourmalet saw 2022 and 2023 Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) win Stage 13 of La Vuelta by 30 seconds. Behind him, teammates Sepp Kuss and Primoz Rogic powered to second and third in the stage, three seconds apart.
The result not only saw Jumbo-Visma take the three top spots on the podium for the stage, but the three riders now sit in the top three spots in the general classification.
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Daily Highlights: Stage 13 - La Vuelta a Espana 2023
Behind them, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) had a day to forget. Surrounded by teammates, the 2022 world road cycling champion and GC hopeful finished 27 minutes and five seconds behind Vingegaard, all but surrendering his hopes of winning the Vuelta overall title.
“I’m just so happy and I couldn’t choose a better day,” Vingegaard said after winning the stage and climbing from seventh to third on the general classification.
“This one is for my daughter Frida. Today is the birthday of my daughter and I wanted to win for her so bad today,” he added. “I’m just so happy and today I did it for her."
While exceptional climbing and smart team tactics worked in their favour, the three Jumbo-Visma riders are united in their quest for any one of the talented trio to win the Vuelta overall title. Kuss holds the red leader's jersey by one minute and 37 seconds over Roglic in second. Vingegaard now sits seven seconds further back.
"Our plan today was to see if we could go for the stage. I had to be the first one attacking, I did, and for me it paid off today. Obviously, we are super, super happy to be one, two, three in the stage but also in the in the GC. It's pretty amazing," Vingegaard said.
While his attack was impressive, the winning advantage is not as large as expected given the Dane's dominating uphill performances in July's Tour de France.
"I think I'm in good shape. I am not on my Tour de France level. I know that. I don't know how much from zero to 100 maybe between 90 and 95 (per cent)," Vingegaard said.
Post-Tour fatigue is clearly a factor in Jumbo-Visma's Vuelta strategy as the team works to capitalise on Vingegaard's 2023 Tour win and Roglic's 2023 Giro d'Italia victory with a Grand Tour hat-trick.
"I'm not fighting my teammates. We're here to win the Vuelta a Espana and it looks very, very promising for us," Vingegaard said.
"There's also a lot of other guys who are super, super strong. So it'll be interesting to see how we do in the next days."
Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) looked comfortably strong as he climbed the Col du Tourmalet during Stage 13 of La Vuelta a Espana. Credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images
"I made my own attack to open up a gap because I don't have that kind of punch that riders like [Juan] Ayuso or Roglič can have," Kuss said of the move that secured him second on the stage.
"There are hard days to come and today I had good legs. I felt I could attack in any moment. But we'll see what happens tomorrow (tonight AEST) and in the stages in Asturias in the third week."
While the Jumbo-Visma riders continue to play their cards close to their chests and let their legs do the talking, they appear united in wanting a win for the team rather than going all in for one rider alone. Knowing too well that anyone can have a bad day, like Evenepoel in Stage 13, the threefold approach is as cautious as it is strong.
"Every year in cycling strong teams like UAE appear, but the kind of teamwork we do in Jumbo-Visma is what makes the difference," Kuss said.
La Vuelta's big climbs continue tonight with another 4623 vertical metres on the menu for Stage 14. Watch the action LIVE from 8:45pm AEST on SBS On Demand and SBS VICELAND.
