La Vuelta Stage 18 Predictions: Look at 18/1 King Kung and 25/1 GC hope for TT

Thursday promises to be an absolutely massive day in La Vuelta 2025 as the riders go solo on a 27.2km individual time trial around Valladolid with General Classification glory still very much on the line (live on TNT Sports 3 from 13:45 BST, highlights at 22:00).

Jonas Vingegaard goes into the TT with a 50-second advantage in the race for red but second-placed Joao Almeida will feel better about his chances of picking up time on the leader. My La Vuelta Stage 18 predictions are below, along with the latest odds from Betfred and full course profile.

La Vuelta Betting Odds

Think of something flat, now think of it flattened out some more, ironed even flatter, then stamped on and ironed for a second time. That might as well be how you think of this time-trial course in Valladolid.

To be fair, there is a slight 850-metre climb around the first time check. But other than that, this is one for the very fast guys and is in no way technical in terms of ascents.

Even the final few kilometres feels like one long road pretty much, with the most minimal of kinks in the road for the last 3km aside from some fairly tame looking roundabouts at 2km, 1km and around 400m from home.

Ineos Grenadiers’ ace TT guy, Filippo ‘Top’ Ganna, is the big favourite with Betfred at 1/2, with the next-most fancied rider being UAE Team Emirates’ Jay Vine at 5/1.

His teammate Juan Ayuso is 7/1, with Lotto’s Alec Segaert 10/1 and Dean Hoole of Visma-Lease a Bike 12/1. Next up is Stefan Kung at 18/1 and the GC’s one and two Jonas Vingegaard and Joao Almeida are both 25/1.

Cycling Odds

Stefan Kung @ 18/1

Ganna looks in good nick, but at 1/2 is a prohibitive shot, and I’m never one to back against Stefan ‘King’ Kung in a TT.

He was the winner in the last individual time trial at La Vuelta, the closing stage of last year’s event in Madrid, and was just six seconds back in the opening day’s action in ’24 when Brandon McNulty took the honours in Oeiras.

The Groupama-FDJ man has not had the greatest of seasons after a heavy fall at Paris-Roubaix, and his La Vuelta so far has been little to write home about. So there’s two ways of looking at it: Either this isn’t his time, or he’s just searching for a day that plays into his hands.

Perhaps he would prefer this one to be slightly more technical, but he’s never far off when riding solo. So at 18/1, with its implied probability of 5.3%, I am more than willing to take the chance on a guy who, on his day, can compete with anyone on a TT bike.

Joao Almeida @ 25/1

The more we see of Almeida battling it out with Vingegaard on climbs, the more it feels like the Portuguese is likely to drop away and stay away rather than get one up on the Dane.

Stage 17 was the latest example of Almeida struggling to keep up with the pace on the mountains but then finding the reserves to rejoin the lead group. He’s hanging on on those terrains.

But he may well have the edge on Jonas in the individual setup, being a multiple former Portuguese National TT champ and podium regular in Grand Tour TTs in the past.

Sure, Vingegaard has form in time trials too, with that mesmerising ride to Combloux at the 2023 Tour de France a defining moment of his career, but Almeida is the higher-ranked of the pair in this format due to his consistency over a longer period of time.

Of course, Almeida could still be beaten to the top three by the likes of Ganna, Ayuso or Segaert. But on a day on which he really needs to find something extra to keep alive his hopes of troubling Vingegaard’s 50-second GC advantage, he needs to pull out all the stops to give himself a fighting chance.

At 25/1, it’s worth a little bet that Almeida makes his move.