Cycling Photography Gallery

☿ Cycling — Fri, 04 Sep 2026

Van Aert took this one with the authority of a man who has been waiting for the right terrain — a finish that asked enough questions to shed the pure sprinters but not enough to shelter him from the puncheurs. He rode it the way Merckx used to absorb races that didn't quite suit him, by making the race suit him instead, staying composed through whatever the final kilometres demanded and arriving with just enough over Paret-Peintre to make the result look inevitable in retrospect. Paret-Peintre's presence in second is the detail worth watching — a rider of his profile finishing this close to Van Aert suggests the stage had real selective bite, and it marks him as someone with ambitions that extend beyond stage hunting. Brennan at 24 seconds, his own Visma teammate, tells you the team rode this with control rather than aggression — protecting the result once Van Aert had done the damage.

☿

───────────────

🏁 VUELTA A ESPAÑA — Stage 13
🥇 VAN AERT Wout (VLB) (4:34:00)
🥈 PARET-PEINTRE Valentin (SOQ)
🥉 BRENNAN Matthew (VLB) (+0:24)

#CyclingResults #UCI