Jonas Vingegaard stamps authority with solo win on Stage 9 as Tom Pidcock soars up rankings at La Vuelta, Torstein Traeen clings to red jersey

Jonas Vingegaard heads into the first rest day at La Vuelta with all the momentum after a searing attack carried him to victory on Stage 9. Behind him, Tom Pidcock hung with Joao Almeida before winning the sprint for second as he climbed from 11th to fourth in the general classification. Torstein Traeen kept the overall lead but his days in red look numbered after he finished 17th on Sunday.

Highlights: Vingegaard powers to Stage 9 victory, Pidcock climbs GC

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Jonas Vingegaard landed a statement solo win on Stage 9 at La Vuelta as he closed in on the leader's red jersey.

The Dane, gamely supported by his Visma-Lease a Bike team-mates, took off on the steeper lower gradients of the final climb - soon distancing himself from Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), the only rider who dared follow.

Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) formed a chase duo, with the Brit edging the race to the line to take six bonus seconds and propel himself into fourth place on GC.

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Torstein Traeen (Bahrain Victorious) clung onto the red jersey despite leaking 1'46" on Vingegaard.

With two more big weeks to come in Spain, it looks like he is merely keeping it warm for the race favourite.

Vingegaard closes on red jersey with dominant Stage 9 win as Pidcock impresses

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The intense opening week drew to a close with a fourth summit finish. The 188km route through the Rioja region to the Valdezcaray ski resort appeared, from the outset, to have a good chance of going the way of the break.

The furious pace at which the opening hour was ridden, with the La fuga del día taking almost an hour-and-a-half to form, reduced those odds, even with the presence of former World Champion Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers.)

Lidl-Trek, supporting both the green jersey of Mads Pedersen and overall contender Giulio Ciccone, was the team most invested in a hard stage. That took some of the responsiblity off the shoulders of Traeen's Bahrain Victorious team-mates. The most the five riders in front were given was 2'35 - not nearly enough to take them to the line.

Lidl-Trek didn't quite get their calculations right to bring them back by the intermediate sprint, even with Q36.5's Nickolas Zukowsky adding to the firepower of Daan Houle and Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier. The ProTeam's presence at the front nevertheless hinted that Pidcock was feeling confident.

Although the breakaway survived to the start of the first category climb, they did so by only a few hundred metres. Its steeper early kilometres favoured the high watts per kilo climbers, none more than Vingegaard.

He instructed his team to set a furious tempo, before Matteo Jorgenson (Visma) launched him with a huge attack, and the Dane was on his way.

'Come on, pull your weight!' - Almeida confronts Pidcock on final climb

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Ciccone was the only rider able to hang on, but even he not for long. A gap to the rest soon opened up, while the other the favourites did what they could to stay in contention.

It quickly became clear that Almeida was the strongest of them but had been caught out by Vingegaard's early move. He could have done with team assistance, however Juan Ayuso (UAE) had exited the bunch, stage left, before the racing was even on.

Almeida was left with Pidcock for company, and not much assistance, as the dimuitive British rider proved unable to perform many turns or provide much of a draft as the gradients eased up.

The Portugese rider was seen calling on him to ride harder, with Pidcock later confirming he had been told to "grow some balls."

Traen looked to be on the way to losing the race lead but was able to steady the ship, and received some assistance from Vingegaard's team-mates Jorgenson and Sepp Kuss.

'He told me to grow some balls!' - Pidcock lifts lid on Almeida clash

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Vingegaard powered to the summit and the stage win, in the process taking time out of his nominal rivals - not including Traen - as well as the red jersey himself.

Pidcock was able to hang on to Almeida's wheel and then get the jump on the Portugese man at the line for second place and four valuable bonus seconds. The result saw him move up seven places in the general classification, as he finished the week in fourth place.

Traen did well to limit his losses on the road to less than two minutes, meaning he retained the jersey heading into the rest day by 37 seconds.

After a number of middling performances, Pidcock was obviously buoyed by his best Grand Tour stage result since Troyes in the Tour de France last year.

"This gives me confidence going into the harder stages to come," Pidcock said afterwards.

'Maybe I didn't do my homework!' – Victorious Vingegaard jokes after thinking finish was closer

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Almeida, for his part, was less than pleased with having lost time to Vingegaard.

"I think we were not expecting the move, so [Visma] had the element of surprise," he said. "I was actually in a good position, but In the end I could not close the gap."

In what was taken by many as a dig at Ayuso going AWOL, the rider suggested he might have been able to close the gap to Vingegaard if he had a bit more support. "I missed a bit my team-mates today. Nobody was with me in the end," he commented.

Going into the second week, Jay Vine (UAE) is still the King of the Mountains, while Giulio Pellizzarri (Red Bull - Bora Hansgrohe) is the best young rider by 27 seconds.

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