The eleventh stage of the 2025 Vuelta a España was unfortunately stopped three kms before the finish line due to pro-Palestinian protestors in Bilbao, Spain. With this, the organisers have decided that no athlete has officially won the stage.
According to the announcement made by the race director, the organisers decided to take the time at three kms. The director added, “We won’t have a stage winner. We will give the points for the mountain classification and the intermediate sprint, but not on the finish line.”
On social media, the official statement also declared: “The safety and physical integrity of the riders are the absolute priority for the organisation. In response to the events that took place during the stage—which we strongly condemn—this decision was made to protect all riders.”
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What happened during the race
The incident started when the race was stopped in a safe zone because protesters holding a banner stood on the road, and the police needed to move them to the side.
Later on, the protesters put a banner across the road in front of the main peloton, but the riders went past smoothly. Along the route of the race, there were both Basque and Palestinian flags.
It was in the last 20 km when the race was stopped, and at that time, the best riders were ahead of the main group.
On the athletes’ performance
Jonas Vingegaard from Visma-Lease a Bike and Tom Pidcock from Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team broke away from the other riders in the last few kilometres and reached the finish line ahead of the others.
Pidcock made his attack on the last hill called Alto de Pike, and only Vingegaard was able to keep up with him.
Joao Almeida, riding for UAE Team Emirates-XRG and who started the day in third place, was left behind. About 24 km from the finish line, a group of 12 riders went ahead, including the best racers. Since then, the police have had a hard time controlling the hundreds of protesters waving Palestinian flags.
With this experience, Vingegaard admitted: “We went through the finish line, we saw them already there kind of on the road, I think the police kept them off there… There was one time when they tried to block us on the second last climb, but we just went through.”
Moreover, Pidcock expressed that he was disappointed with how the race ended.
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