The stage had an uphill start and it was Mads Pedersen himself who attacked the first kilometers of the stage trying to form a breakaway. It was a valiant effort and he was joined by Marc Soler and Orluis Aular. The trio ended up becoming the main move of the day.
However Visma pushed the pace all day long, trying to keep the break under control – perhaps motivated by Jonas Vingegaard’s wishes to win on his son’s birthday. The front three were quickly caught, so early on that in the first ascent of the Alto del Vivero Mikel Landa went on the attack, joined by Santiago Buitrago.
However the Basque suffered from back cramps and Buitrago was left in front by himself. The Colombian went into the second ascent of Vivero in the race lead, and was caught as João Almeida took to the front and attacked the climb on several occasions, but always followed by Jonas Vingegaard and his teammate Ben Tulett.
However all moves were neutralized, but so was the stage. In fact it was not fully clear what the situation was at the time, and it wasn’t clear if all riders knew of the situation unfolding at the finish line. The large amount of anti-Israel protestors at the finish in Bilbao raised high levels of concern, and the finale was neutralized with no stage winner to be declared and with GC times to be taken with 3 kilometers to go.
However this would still mean that the Alto de Pike would be tackled, where Visma entered in front. The climb was short but reached gradients of 20%, where Tom Pidcock hit the front and made the difference, dropping everyone including even Jonas Vingegaard twice. However the red jersey would close the gap at the start of the descent, but there were meaningful gaps behind including João Almeida who had been dropped.
The riders crossed the 3 kilometers to go banner and the stage officially ended there, although it became clear that not everyone was aware of this situation that had developed.