La Vuelta 2025 Predictions: Back Italian for rare treble behind 40/1 Hindley

The final event of Cycling’s Grand Tour season begins on Saturday (11:45 BST on TNT Sports 3) when the north-west of Italy plays host to the opening stage of the 2025 La Vuelta a Espana, and two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard starts as a red-hot favourite.

With no Tadej Pogacar riding for UAE Team Emirates, the Visma Lease-A-Bike star is easily the biggest name in the race. But with UAE having a two-pronged attack lined up and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe throwing their weight behind Jai Hindley, my La Vuelta 2025 predictions offer plenty of variety.

La Vuelta Betting Odds

Despite, or maybe because of, the absence of Pogacar, we still have a runaway favourite. Vingegaard may not have managed to rein in the great Slovenian in the last couple of trips around l’Hexagone, but he is by some distance the second-best GC rider in modern cycling.

His odds of 1/3 for the red jersey are wholly justified, and in real terms it was only circumstance and subsequent team orders which led to him finishing second behind surprise winner Sepp Kuss in 2023.

So we have to go on the working assumption that the Dane will win the race. With no Primoz Roglic – a four-time winner in Spain – in the peloton, Vingegaard’s biggest challenge might still come from familiar teams even if Pogacar, Roglic and double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel are not on the startlist.

UAE have a two-headed monster, with Joao Almeida and Juan Ayuso both considered threats in the GC. The only question there is in how team orders work once one gets ahead of the other in the standings.

Just as Visma’s priorities were questioned when Kuss, Vingegaard and Roglic led the way two years ago, if Ayuso leads Almeida but then upcoming stage profiles suit the Portuguese, UAE’s team radio will provide some fascinating insight.

Almeida is 5/1 to don the red jersey on the podium in Madrid on September 14, with Ayuso 6/1.

Next in the outright market comes Lidl-Trek’s Italian climbing specialist Giulio Ciccone at 20/1, but there are some questioning whether he has the legs to last the whole three weeks having failed to complete five of his last nine Grand Tour entries. He has also never posted a top-10 finish to date.

His compatriot Antonio Tiberi, of Bahrain-Victorious, is also 20/1 after showing up well at the Giro d’Italia in both 2024 and 2025. Twelve months ago he was looking like a threat in La Vuelta, sitting in fourth on GC, when he had to retire with heat stroke midway through stage nine.

There’s then a quintet of riders on 40/1 with Betfred, who cannot split last year’s runner-up Ben O’Connor from Egan Bernal, Felix Gall, Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari.

Jai Hindley each-way outright @ 40/1

With Vingegaard the probable winner, it’s within the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe camp that I go looking for value.

Jai Hindley has been a Grand Tour winner in the past, taking the maglia rosa at the Giro d’Italia back in 2022 having been a runner-up two years prior.

That ’22 triumph came with a heavily-backloaded route which really tested the riders in the final week. And it was there that the Australian excelled, pushing race leader Richard Carapaz to the limit before eventually cracking the Ecuadorian on the penultimate stage on the slopes of the Passo Fedaia.

This time around I’m expecting him to revel in being Bora’s big hope. Roglic is busy focusing on the World Championships, and next year the Slovenian and Evenepoel will be getting all the key rides once the Olympic champ joins from Soudal-Quick Step.

So this might be Hindley’s little window to prove something going into the final year of his contract with the team. And with the likes of Pellizzari, Nico Denz and Finn Fisher-Black wearing the same colours, Hindley could have a great variety of support if he finds himself challenging for a podium spot in the final week.

So at 40/1, I reckon the Aussie has a great chance of having a say around Italy and Spain over the next three weeks. He’s got to be a good each-way bet.

Cycling Odds

Giulio Ciccone to win King of the Mountains Classification @ 9/4

So long as he stays on the bike for the duration, Giulio Ciccone has to be one of the leading candidates for the blue polka dots.

A previous winner of the King of the Mountains category in both the Giro and Le Tour, the Italian could well complete a rare treble by becoming only the third rider in history to top the climbers’ standings in all three Grand Tours.

Colombia’s Luis Herrera was the last person to achieve the feat, adding the KOM crown at the 1989 Giro to previous successes in France and Spain. And before him, only the Spaniard Federico Bahamontes had previously won it on three fronts back in the 1950s and 60s.

So Ciccone could be in exalted company if he comes out on top over the hills of Spain, but in a race known for being on the more vertical side as a rule he will have to negotiate 54,588 metres of elevation gain over the 21 stages.

That figure is way in excess of the 46,500 he triumphed over in the 2019 Giro but comes in behind the 56,467 of the 2023 Tour de France when he was last crowned King of the Mountains.

While Vingegaard (4/1) an Lorenzo Fortunato (7/1) are the biggest threats to the Italian in this field, I am backing Ciccone to go all out for the climbing classification crown. He has a reputation for not quite being of GC quality, and that distance from the leaders could simply help him to focus on his own little piece of Grand Tour history.

The 9/4 price at an implied probability of 30.8% looks good to me.

You can read all our latest Cycling Betting Tips here.