This Climber Shocked the World on Angliru | Vuelta España Femenina 2026 Stage 7

The mythical Angliru being used for the first time in La Vuelta Femenina. We've never had, I don't think, a Spanish GC winner before. We had Les Perez Rampas test yesterday, but that was only 20 minutes. Today, we have the Angliru, which is 52 minutes, more or less. I think the QOM might be a bit shorter than that. We don't have the Coridal beforehand. We have the Alto de Tenebredo, which is still very steep in the last kilometer, but the last 6Ks of Angliru, 10%, with some Rampas above that. Van der Breggen leading Blasi in GC by 18 seconds, Bounel on 41 seconds, and when coverage started, the Peloton was on that second-last climb. So I don't think it made too much of a difference not having Coridal. I think it was good the way they designed this stage. You see Anna van der Breggen, she doesn't need to do anything. She's got Femke Marcus in the breakaway ahead in case someone tried something on this climb. She just needs to follow Blasi. She doesn't need to win the stage. She really just has to focus on Bounel and Blasi. And we saw on that climb, it got thinned out a little bit. The breakaway went down to 50 seconds. They got that gap back in the valley. So Ferron Prevot, Sarah Van Dam, and Maud Alderman working for Marion Bounel, who was in the third position on GC and in the Young Riders jersey. UAE had control a little bit of the stage earlier, but when we get to the warm-up climb, remember it's 4Ks, 7.5% before the ramps start. I think this is where Tiberi paced pretty fast, I don't know, like three years ago. Lippert's the best from the breakaway. She has a minute when the ramps start and it's not Kerbal today. It's Gaia Riolini with the heat check. You can't do a heat check on the Angliru. I mean, the gradients do not forgive surges. It is an ITT. And Stiazny, the Swiss climber on Human Powered Health, she just had a Watt target, it seemed like, and she just does her an ITT. We've got Cavallar with van der Breggen, no domestiques for Blasi Bertet and in a short while for Bunel. It's actually Human Powered Health with two in the group with Malcotti. But yes, Stiazny sets the pace and I began to notice van der Breggen was suffering. Yes, she's got the dinner plate cassette on, but there was multiple instances where she was talking on the radio and Cavallar's head snapped back to look what she was, and he's one of them. It's like she wants, I think she wanted Cavallar to let Stiazny go, but I don't know, does Cavallar speak Dutch? Because then if it was in English, Bunel's hearing that, Bertet's hearing that, Blasi is hearing that if she's saying slow down, let her go. So AVDB, there were a few tells that she was suffering, but then she, as Cavallar gets dropped, she follows the Stiazny pace herself. Bear in mind, Stiazny's on like 13 minutes on GC and with four and a half K's to go, which is still like 25 minutes left maybe, Marion Bunel with the earpiece out, Tacx seated in the saddle. You see Blasi initially responding, van der Breggen is not reacting. Blasi actually lets Bunel go here, which I think, yeah, Bunel attacked too hard. If you look at the riders who paced themselves, it was actually, van der Breggen did pace herself very well. Look where Stiazny is. At this point in the race with Bunel attacking, she's not responding. She's just doing probably the same what she was always doing. Blasi though sees weakness in van der Breggen. So Blasi sees an opportunity here. She then goes across to Bunel, drops van der Breggen and van der Breggen pays for this. I mean, when you look at how close she finished at the end, you realize van der Breggen was just pacing herself the whole time. So maybe they would have been helped if they let Stiazny just go up the road early doors, but here she has to let Blasi go. Stiazny goes back around her. Bertay is looking really, really good, but she lost time earlier in the week. And now you're thinking the GC battle's up front. Will Blasi pull with Bunel or will she be worried about attacking? By the way, here's that dinner plate cassette that van der Breggen had on her bike. So pretty cool to see actually teams using gear ratios that actually let their riders do their normal self-selected cadence, even on the angular route. Blasi answers my question by just going to the front and putting Bunel under pressure. Bunel paying for that acceleration and Blasi drops her through this hairpin. Bear in mind, we still have like 18 minutes left on this climb. Zygarde goes past van der Breggen, but Blasi looks locked in. The Spanish rider, she was like doing, she was doing like Catalan local races, I swear, 18 months ago. And she was a triathlete two years ago. So she's been another convert to cycling. She obviously has a very, very special engine because you see, she's not Bunel. She's not Stiazny. She straight up rode away from the whole peloton in Amstel Gold Race on the rolling terrain and just destroyed everybody. No one could bring her back. And now on the angular route, she's dropping van der Breggen, dropping Bunel, but Stiazny's coming back. The only rider pretty much who said she was looking forward to the angular route, Stiazny drops the hammer in the curve with two Ks to go. This K is averaging 17% on the angular route and she picks her moment to use her advantage against Blasi, paced herself a little bit better and goes past. And the gaps look small, but they're not. And when you see Stiazny's pace on that hairpin there, how far she's going, she would take a big gap to Blasi, huge upset. I mean, Stiazny's done good performances. Sometimes I like, especially UAE Tour, you can sometimes see diminutive climbers who get dropped on crosswinds. It happened when Pogacar won GC. You look at the group two, who did a good climbing performance there. They might only come 15th. Stiazny's one of those riders. She wins the biggest race of her career, wins on angular route. Blasi posts up early. We didn't know where van der Breggen was. It wasn't that, like it wasn't like van der Breggen cracked, but Blasi wins GC, huge upset on the final day. Magic race. The last two stages have been very entertaining. Stiazny ahead of Blasi, Berte, Bruno, van der Breggen, close on 59 seconds. Kavala, Zygarde, Oselizer, Malkotti, Winker. Here's what Stiazny had to say. I still can't believe it, honestly. I'm lost for words for me. It's incredible. I have no words. I'm speechless. Were you already in your mind like, okay, yeah, I have the legs. I'm gonna go for it. For me today, like I was looking forward to this stage, like for a really long time when they announced it, that the angular route would be part of the Vuelta. For me, it was, I had only one thing in my head, like every day for me, it was a dream, but it was a dream to win this stage. You know, you have to arrive to the day, you have to go. It can happen so many things during the week. And today, this morning, I was, today finally is like the day I was looking forward so long to. And I told at the beginning of the week to my sports director, you know, when I arrive at the angular route, I feel free. I feel in my place, in my happy place. This is my kind of climb. This is my gradient. Then I feel free. And for me today, when we were at the bottom of the climb, I was like, now I made it through the Vuelta. I didn't crash. I wasn't dropped on a descent today. And now I feel free. And now I was in my place and I was, the whole climb, I was in my happy place. I could, I really enjoyed it, to be honest, yeah. In terms of GC, I mean, what a spring for Paula Blasi. She is a legitimate superstar of the sport, now wins Ardennes races, now wins her home Grand Tour ahead of Van der Breggen. Bunel comes third. Van der Breggen did well actually to pace herself, to stay in second. Osterweil is a fourth. Hope you enjoyed the videos and I'll see you with a recap of maybe Hungary shortly. Ciao, ciao.