photo credits @ La Vuelta
Called up at the last minute to participate in this year Vuelta’s Ben Turner (Ineos Grenadiers) proved to be more than up to the challenge as he punched his way to victory in Voiron on day 4! The young Briton takes his third professional victory, the first in a Grand Tour, three weeks after he opened his UCI WorldTour tally in the Tour de Pologne. As the race left Italy and arrived in France, Turner managed to get the better of Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), the first winner of La Vuelta 25. French crowds also got to see David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) take La Roja, his first Grand Tour leader’s jersey. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) is still level on time, but the tiebreaker shifted in favour of the Breton climber, 25th on the day, while the Dane came 42nd. Gaudu is the 27th French leader of the Spanish Grand Tour, following in the tracks of Gilbert Bauvin (the first, in 1955, when La Vuelta visited France for the first time) and Lenny Martinez (the last, in 2023).
Race Highlights
As the route quickly rose, five attackers eventually managed to ride clear atop the first ascent of the day to Exilles, with Louis Vervaeke (Soudal Quick-Step), Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost), Joel Nicolau (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Kamiel Bonneu (Intermarché-Wanty) and Mario Aparicio (Burgos Burpellet BH) escaping the peloton.
Nicolau was the first atop the Exilles climb, only to be beaten by Vervaeke on the Col de Montgenèvre, placing the Spanish rider on par with Alessandro Verre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) in the KOM standings.
Back in the peloton, Mads Pedersen’s Lidl-Trek accelerated over the summit to bring the gap down from 4 to 2 minutes en route to the Col du Lautaret, while the winner of the combativity award on day 3, Quinn, dropped his breakaway companions before the summit
However, the quintet of escapees was back together on the descent to Bourg d’Oisans before getting reined by the peloton with 91 km to go.
From there, Aparicio decided to attack again, only to be reeled just 2 kilometers later.
The peloton later reached the intermediate sprint in Noyarey, with Pedersen collecting the points, while Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) both chased bonus seconds but they had to settle for 4th and 5th place, respectively.
Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) briefly animated things with an attack, with the French rider subsequently opening up a slight gap of 40’’ before being reeled in with 15 km to go.
Heading onto the finale, Lidl-Trek and Alpecin-Deceuninck tried to take control of the sprint, but they couldn’t hold off Turner, while Gaudu made sure there were no more than 8 riders between him and Jonas Vingegaard, earning him his first Grand Tour leader’s jersey in front of French crowds.
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