The 2025 Vuelta a España came to an unwonted close Sept. 14, not because of who won the race — that part was quite typical. Danish cyclist Jonas Vingegaard picked up his third grand tour win, and team Visma-Lease a Bike notched their fifth Vuelta win of the past seven years and second grand tour win of the season. The unusual came in the form of the finish — and podium presentation. The final stage of the race was cut short some 58 kilometers from the finish due to protests, and the podium ceremony took place in a car park atop a podium fashioned from cool boxes.
The Vuelta a España is a multi-stage road cycling race held in Spain each year over three weeks in August and September. The Vuelta is one of three Grand Tours — the other two being the Giro d’Italia each May and the preeminent Tour de France, which takes place each July. This year’s Vuelta marked the 80th edition of the race, a testament to the rich history of the sport.
The race saw familiar favorites picking up stage wins and a top 10 ranking full of recent podium finishers, up-and-coming young riders and a couple of surprises. Team Visma-Lease a Bike had three riders in the top 10 — Jonas Vingegaard in first, 2023 winner Sepp Kuss from the United States in seventh, and Matteo Jorgenson also from the United States in 10th. Despite Visma-Lease a Bike’s top 10 presence, UAE Team Emirates XRG actually won the Vuelta’s team category — a competition in which the times of each team’s three best performers in each stage are summed across the race.
Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates XRG have dominated performances in this year’s Grand Tours. Visma rider Simon Yates won the Giro d’Italia, and UAE notched the team competition there. UAE rider Tadej Pogačar came out on top in the Tour de France, and Visma secured the Tour’s team classification. UAE, returning as the team winner of the Vuelta, also banked the stage five team time trial win.
Vingegaard and Belgian sprinter Jasper Philipsen led the race in stage wins, both amassing three. Yet, Danish Mads Pedersen won the green jersey and points competition — a contest where riders accumulate points based on their finish place in each stage and performance at intermediate sprints — by 80 points. For context, Pederson finished the race with 277 points, more than double his next sprint competitor Philipsen’s 135 points and ahead of the overall and three-time stage winner Vingegaard.
Australian UAE rider Jay Vine won the polka dot jersey and king of the mountain classification by coming over the most climbs in top positions. 23-year-old Matthew Riccitello of the Israel-Premier Tech team won the youth competition for riders under the age of 26 and placed fifth in the general classification, which is where this year’s Vuelta changes from mostly expected to a little out of the ordinary.
Riccitello’s fifth-place finish marked the best of his career after finishing 30th in last year’s Vuelta. Two-time Olympic mountain bike cross country champion Tom Pidcock also had a breakthrough Grand Tour season, finishing third. 21-year-old Giulio Pellizzari finished sixth in his third Grand Tour, following a sixth place finish in this year’s Giro d’Italia.
Diving deeper into the unorthodox nature of this year’s Vuelta, protests interrupted eight stages of this year’s race. The protests were pro-Palestinian in nature and targeted against Riccitello’s team, Israel-Premier Tech. In stage five, half of the Israel-Premier Tech team was forced to stop during the team time trial after a makeshift barrier was pulled across the road in front of them. In stage 10, a rider crashed after protesters compressed the peloton. Stage 15 saw another rider down, who was later forced to abandon the race.
Racers were forced to abandon stage 11 just 3 kilometers from the finish, and no winner was declared. Stage 16 faced a similar fate, cut 8 kilometers short, though a winner was declared. The individual time trial in stage 18 was shortened to less than half its original distance. The final stage was once again cut short and the podium presentation revoked as more than 100,000 people took to the streets of Madrid in protest.
To be clear, protests in professional cycling are nothing new. In this year’s Tour de France, a pro-Palestinian protester also took to the course. Back in 2022, climate activists chained themselves together and sat in the middle of the road, halting the race for 15 minutes. In 2018, French farmers protesting declining agricultural subsidies were teargassed by police, and so were some cyclists, inadvertently delaying the race. This year’s Giro d’Italia was also the subject of a pro-Palestinian protest involving a rope across the road.
While professional cycling is not immune to protests, this year’s Vuelta protests occurred on a rather unprecedented scale. The last time a Grand Tour was stopped due to protests was nearly 50 years ago during the 1978 Vuelta. This year’s Vuelta stages ranged in length from the heavily shortened 12.2-kilometer individual time trial to over 200 kilometers, with most being around 160 kilometers. It would be impossible to police an entire 160-kilometer course, leaving room for protests to occur.
This year’s Vuelta protests likely did not have an effect on the race results. Vingegaard won over UAE rider Joao Almeida by 1 minute and 16 seconds, though the stages cut short were not necessarily inconsequential. Stages 11 and 16 were both classified as medium mountains, and mountainous stages are typically where riders make up the most time. Time trials provide the other greatest opportunity for gaining time, and this year’s was cut in half. This year’s shortened stages were not insignificant, but it is highly unlikely the stages running to completion would have yielded a different race leader.
Partway through this year’s race, Vuelta technical director Kiko Gonzalez said the Israel-Premier Tech team should leave the race.
“There is only one solution: for the Israeli team to recognize that their presence here does not promote safety,” Gonzalez told reporters.
Days before the race, Israel-Premier Tech lost their leading rider; as Canadian Derek Gee said, “certain issues simply made my continuation at the team untenable.” In combination with the aftermath of this year’s Vuelta, this brings into question the future of the team.
Next year’s Tour de France Grand Départ is slated for Barcelona. The city of Barcelona has already called for Israel-Premier Tech’s exclusion from the race. Given the end of this year’s Vuelta, it will be interesting to see what changes — if any — take place ahead of next July.