Van Aert beats Paret-Peintre in the Loja sprint in the hot stage 13 of La Vuelta

The Belgian cyclist Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) won this Friday stage 13 of the Vuelta a España 2026, held over 192.8 kilometers between Almuñécar and Loja, while the Spanish Enric Mas (Movistar Team) has protected his lead in a general classification despite the offensives of the Dane Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek).

This day, with departure and arrival in Granada municipalities, faced a mid-mountain route under a lot of heat. And after thirty kilometers spent, the passage through the port of Venta de la Cebada (1st cat.) formed a breakaway with 28 riders, several renowned ones such as the Belgian Wout van Aert and the Englishman Matthew Brennan, both from Visma-Lease a Bike.

Shortly after, the abandonment of the Austrian Gregor Mühlberger, teammate of his compatriot Felix Gall in the Decathlon CMA CGM, was confirmed, and another 15 cyclists joined those already escaped, with Mattias Skjelmose being the great threat for the leading positions in the general classification.

Having opened quite a gap with respect to the peloton, where Enric Mas showed calm, first the American Kevin Vermaeke (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and then especially the Norwegian Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility) attacked among the group of escapees, breaking the race.

The Puerto de Granada (2nd cat.), with its 7.4 kilometers of ascent at 5.6% gradient, was crowned 37.4 km from the finish line and showed that Vermaerke, Van Aert and especially Brennan had good legs heading into a close outcome along with six other survivors of the escape.

The New Zealander Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), the French Léo Bisiaux (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step), the Dane Simon Dalby (Uno-X Mobility), the Italian Vincenzo Albanese (EF Education-EasyPost) and the Belgian Jarno Widar (Lotto Intermarché) consolidated their lead to play for the victory in Loja.

However, with the intention of avoiding a large crowd, Van Aert and Paret-Peintre attacked 3.6 km from the finish line to fight for victory between them. And there, despite the Frenchman’s desire, the Belgian showed more skill to win the final sprint and close the stage in 4h34:00; The platoon, with leader Mas without scares, arrived at 3:00.