La Vuelta Stage 1 Predictions: 4/1 shot to sprint home in Grand Depart

Jonas Vingegaard’s quest to win a first La Vuelta a Espana begins on Saturday at stage one of the 2025 edition between Turin and Novara in the north-west of Italy (live on TNT Sports 3  from 11:45 BST, highlights at 22:30).

It ought to be a battle of the sprinters though, with Vingegaard and his fellow GC contenders being forced to watch from afar. So my La Vuelta Stage 1 predictions will focus on the speed demons.

La Vuelta Betting Odds

We’ve gone from one extreme to the other over the last couple of years in our Grand Depart at La Vuelta. In 2023 it was opened heavens in the pitch black of Barcelona, while 12 months back we were treated to stifling temperatures in Portugal.

The first four stages of this year’s Vuelta are being raced around the scenery of northern Italy, so expect a happy medium on the climate front as the peloton takes on the 186.1km of stage one.

There’s just a single Cat 3 climb to deal with at La Serra about a third of the way through the day’s contest, so that should do little to split the field. And with most of the remainder of the stage being harmless, the gradually-increasing speeds into Novara over the last 20km should be exactly what the sprinters love to see.

When all is said and done, this ought to be a two-horse race between Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen of Lidl-Trek.

Philipsen looked primed to lead the challenge for the green jersey at the Tour de France but was the unfortunate victim in a crash at an intermediate sprint on stage three when Cofidis rider Bryan Coquard cannoned into him.

The Belgian was a points classification winner at Le Tour in 2023 and has a total of 13 Grand Tour stage wins to his name, including three at two previous rides around Spain.

His main threat on Saturday is Pedersen, who won green at the Vuelta in 2022 and more recently triumphed in the same category at this year’s Giro d’Italia.

The Dane is a 4/1 chance, with Philipsen 1/1. Next in the market you will find Picnic PostNL’s Casper van Uden at 13/2 and Bedford-born Ethan Vernon of Israel-Premier Tech is 8/1.

Cycling Odds

Mads Pedersen @ 4/1

There’s not much to split the two main favourites for the opening stage really, but I’m plumping for Pedersen to bring home the spoils and take the first maillot rojo of this year’s event.

While Philipsen can be deadly in the final 200 metres on his best day and with the full support of his perfect lead-out train, he doesn’t have the luxury of former world road race champion Mathieu van der Poel sending him off down the home straight here as he would if this was a Tour de France.

Pedersen also has a punctured support too, of course. He doesn’t have any of Simone Consonni, Jonathan Milan, Mattias Skjelmose and Edward Theuns with him here. But I just fancy him to make the most of what he’s got when it comes into the final few hundred metres.

The value is tempting too, with Philipsen’s 1/1 bordering on prohibitive when you consider the bumps and scrapes that can dictate a sprint finish. The 4/1 about Pedersen is all the more appealing with a bit of a softer look about the price, with its implied probability of 25%.

You can read all our latest Cycling Betting Tips here.