La Vuelta 2025 Stage 8 LIVE - Jasper Philipsen takes his second stage victory from Elia Viviani at the end of chaotic sprint

The final day before a rest, and the last of my stint, should be explosive. It's another summit finish but the final climb is longer than it is steep. Will the likes of Almeida look to clip Traeen's feathers, or will they leave the attacks to the second week?

See you on the other side.

Mads Pedersen could manage no higher than 11th place for just 6 points. With Vernon scoring 22, the gap narrows to just nine. Mads Pedesen might have to go up the road again tomorrow.

He might have a case against Viviani's irregular sprint. He'd like the extra sprint points.

It was messy, disorganized, chaotic. I thought Viviani had it for a moment but I was looking at the wrong line. Philipsen made no mistake on the left, though, doing just enough to earn the right to raise his fist to the skies.

FLAMME ROUGE: WHO'S GOING TO GIVE THE BEST LEAD-OUT?

They're swarming, ready for this big finish. Turner loses the wheel of Ganna and has to fight to find it again. It's so tight.

Kwiatkowski is looking out for Ben Turner. Lotto bring Elia Viviani to the front. EF guiding Madis Mihkels.

It looks hard because it is. Picnic-PostNL come to the front and look determined. Intermarche, who we've barely mentioned in the last week, also emerge. It's still the Visma bees riding a bloc, but they've now passed the safety zone.

Maybe that's deliberate, but it looks like Pedersen was right that he would be on his own for the finale.

And Ayuso out the back. He's losing time on purpose.

The wide roads are a bit of a mixed blessing, because it means it's possible for almost anyone to move up at any time, if they're prepared to make the effort to do so. That causes them to hang back until such time as they want to, then making it hard for everyone else when they put in that acceleration.

They exchange nods of respect and wave the white flag. Visma leading with Dylan van Baarle and Victor Campenaerts in charge. Vingegaard is easy to spot with his Danish flag helmet.

Racing is a very different form of cycling. Our final pair are giving it everything, but the clock says 15 seconds. Not long now.

And the pace is really on as they fight for the front ahead of every corner.

It's an interesting little subplot. They know there's no chance of going the distance, so it's an extra race within the race. Who's going to be last man standing?

Faura, the climber of the trio, is first to fall out the back, just before the first crossing of the finish line.

That tells us the gap is really coming down. They have to be more careful than normal on an inner city circuit. The roads are wide enough for everyone but the spectators are packed along the roadside.

As they arrive in Zaragoza, hometown of the European Cup Winners Cup Winners (that's not an error), their lead falls below one minute for the first time in several hours. They're putting up a good fight but I think the teams set on a sprint will see to it they get one. They're beginning to organise.

With the three riders up the road hoovering up the top three places, there were just two remaining for the bunch. Jake Stewart looked to lead-out his team-mate Ethan Vernon, but in the end served as provider for the green jersey. Vernon did score the 10, but for a net loss of three to the Danish rider. He stands a good chance of taking all of those back

A bit premature for this question, perhaps, but at what point do we ask if Torstein Traeen is a genuine GC contender? We'll discuss it more tomorrow, but one to mull over before more mountains.