Enric Mas won the Vuelta a España! Yes the Spanish nearly-man finally won his home Grand Tour after four podiums and three second places to take Spain’s first Grand Tour win in 11 years. What a time to be alive.
While that is indisputably the story of the race for obvious reasons, there’s plenty to take away from the final Grand Tour of the season, here are our nine favourite storylines from the Vuelta.
Enric Mas finally gets his Vuelta a España win
Movistar’s Enric Mas has reached the top step status at last. After inheriting red following Tadej Pogačar’s crash, Mas became the man to beat in the last two weeks and never looked in danger, ultimately winning by over two minutes ahead of four-time victor Primož Roglič and Giro runner-up Felix Gall.
It’s a maiden Grand Tour victory for Mas and a first for Movistar here since Nairo Quintana’s red jersey in 2016. Can he repeat the feat? Probably not considering Pogačar is still eyeing the Grand Tour triple club, and then he’ll inevitably be followed by attempts from the Isaac del Toro and Paul Seixases of the world. But that likely doesn’t matter to Mas. He has the jersey now.
The Wout van Aert and Matthew Brennan partnership is golden
Visma-Lease a Bike have a dream team in Wout van Aert and Matthew Brennan. With Sepp Kuss doing his own thing on the GC, the team were left to hunt stages. And hunt stages they did. Thanks to a solid leadout from Van Aert, 21-year-old Brennan scooped up five wins – the most of anyone at the race – in his debut Grand Tour and Van Aert claimed two stages for himself in addition to the points classification, in which the pair finished first and second.
This duo will be one to follow for the next few years, it’s hard to see Visma keeping the Binman away from the Tour de France with its UK start in 2027.
Primož Roglič good, not great
This hasn’t been the best season for Primož Roglič, and prior to the Vuelta he missed two key warmup races in the Clásica San Sebastián and the Vuelta a Burgos after being hit by a car while training. Still, he rallied to be on the podium after Stage 4 and never relented, ending up second behind Mas by over two minutes. He displayed a very laissez-faire attitude throughout the three weeks that worked in his favour, team staff even wearing shirts displaying his quote following Stage 9 when he lost some time to Mas and Oscar Onley: ‘I didn’t do much. It’s beautiful to ride a bike now, outside in nice weather. They were hard climbs and some guys were too fast, but I’m happy.’
It was a shame that we couldn’t get more of a showdown between a man vying for his first win and the man aiming to break the record of most overall Vuelta victories. Still, it’s a positive sign for Roglič, who will now likely be leading the Slovenian team at Worlds next week.
Felix Gall earns second Grand Tour podium of season
Felix Gall finished second behind Jonas Vingegaard at the Giro d’Italia and ended the season in a similar vein, with third at the Vuelta. It’s been a great season for the 28-year-old as he built on his strong 2025 – where he raced to fifth at the Tour de France and eighth at the Vuelta – to have his best results in Grand Tours to date.
A win should be in his sights for 2027, but where? Well with the Pogačar/Vingegaard Tour battle still rumbling on and Pogačar’s unfinished business in Spain, he’ll no doubt be looking to head back to the Giro, but with a move to Lidl-Trek on the horizon, will they want to save him for the Tour?
Sepp Kuss shines on Stage 20
Sepp Kuss was somewhat of a free man over the past three weeks and after starting out strong he gradually slipped backwards to sit 11th overall heading into Stage 20.
That opened the door for a special performance. The 2023 Vuelta winner launched a long-range attack so strong that it took him all the way into the top five on GC. On a day that saw mass breakaways and others in the deeper end of the top ten dropping away, Kuss attacked once on the first ascent of the Puerto de el Purche then again on the second to make his move. Linking up with teammates Van Aert and talented youngster Jørgen Nordhagen he was able to finish eighth on the stage and take back five minutes and more on his immediate GC rivals.
It’s just a shame the cameras captured so little of it.
Richard Carapaz is relentless as always
Attack with 100km remaining. Attack again. Launch another attack. One more for the road! Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) was incessant in his GC aspirations at the Vuelta and the fireworks arrived on Stage 20, where he was teed up by teammate Juan Rodriguez to consistently hit out from the group of overall favourites. It was Gall that he had to drop, the pair third and fourth on GC, but each attack was inevitably answered as he then couldn’t respond to the Austrian’s move on the Collado del Alguacil.
Carapaz finished fourth just as he did here in 2024, but what a show it was. I expected nothing less.
Mikel Landa still has it
It all happened on Stage 20. Kuss rose up the standings, Carapaz attacked until his legs gave out, Mas secured the title, and Mikel Landa rolled back the years. In one of his final races for Soudal Quick-Step, the Basque rider scored his first Grand Tour stage win since 2017.
Landa has been quite unlucky throughout his career with illness and injury and 2026 was no exception. He was forced to withdraw from Itzulia Basque Country when he was hit by the race’s medical car and suffered a pelvis fracture. Upon his return to the peloton, he abandoned the Tour de Suisse and was later cited as saying this was the worst year of his career. Yet he persisted.
He was part of the large breakaway on Stage 20 and went clear in the final 7km on the Collado del Alguacil. He was visibly emotional, saying after the stage, ‘Today was my last chance and I didn’t want to let it slip through my fingers. I thought of my children – I couldn’t go home like that. And if one day they see this and understand it, I’d like them to know that you must never give up.’
Landa will leave Soudal Quick-Step at the end of the year to join Basque team Euskaltel Euskadi. As a result, this might well have been his final Grand Tour. Landismo forever.
The future is bright
Oscar Onley and Jakob Omrzel, take a bow. 23-year-old Onley topped the white jersey standings in his first Grand Tour for Netcompany Ineos, riding to sixth place overall to finish off a tough season in style, while 20-year-old Omrzel of Bahrain Victorious finished seventh overall, making Onley’s job far from easy.
Slovenian Omrzel became the second youngest stage winner in Vuelta history with his victory on Stage 12, doing so in dominating fashion on Calar Alto with a gap of almost two minutes. Having been compared to his compatriot Pogačar, he’s off to a good start.
Tudor and Pinarello get ball rolling
It was a fruitful Vuelta for Tudor and Pinarello Q36.5 as both ProTeams grabbed their first Grand Tour stage wins. Marco Brenner did the honours for Tudor with a sprint against King of the Mountains Santiago Buitrago on Stage 14 atop Sierra de la Pandera, while Eddie Dunbar got the job done for Pinarello on Stage 19 – also against Buitrago, poor thing – as teammates Tom Gloag and Marcel Camprubí also finished within the top five. Dunbar was unfortunately then forced to abandon with a broken collarbone on Stage 20, but taking a victory two years after winning a pair of stages, he should come away from the race happy.