La Vuelta Stage 5 Predictions: Visma to return the red to Vingegaard

La Vuelta finally arrives in Spain on Wednesday as Stage 5 of the 2025 event sees this year’s Team Time-Trial take place in Figueres (live on TNT Sports 3  from 15:15 BST, highlights at 22:00).

The last TTT at La Vuelta was a bit of an organisation nightmare, with pouring rain and the pitch-black streets of Barcelona making the opening stage of 2023 a dice-throw of a competition. My La Vuelta Stage 5 predictions are below, and I’m working on the assumption this will be a far more rider-friendly afternoon.

La Vuelta Betting Odds

The 24.1km course around Figueres should be fast. Very fast. The only thing that could hamper the riders in real terms is the wind. But with the loop nature of the route, whatever problems any of that might cause should be negated by the same level of help on the way back in.

There are three time checks at 6.9km, 10.8km and 15.4km, but at each one it ought to be Visma Lease-A-Bike and UAE Team Emirates fighting it out for top spot.

They are the two teams favoured by the bookies, and with good reason. With Jonas Vingegaard, Joao Almeida and Juan Ayuso expected to be the three biggest names fighting for the red jersey at the end of the competition, all eyes will be on their two teams.

Lotto will be the first team off the ramp at 15:37 BST, with UAE going off at 16:57 and Visma at 17:01. Groupama-FDJ, including the current maillot rojo in David Gaudu, are last out at 17:05.

Visma are 6/4 favourites with Betfred, but UAE aren’t far behind on 7/4. Ineos Grenadiers are 10/3 to follow up Ben Turner’s astounding victory on Tuesday with another first-place success in the TT, with Groupama and Lidl-Trek both 18/1.

Cycling Odds

Visma Lease-A-BIke @ 6/4

Vingegaard’s Visma strike me as the team most likely to get the job done in this one. The Dane will be desperate to make the most of this opportunity to put some time on his rivals for the red jersey.

Sure, he lost the rojo on Tuesday, but that could barely have gone better for the two-time Tour de France winner. He got to slope off early and make the transfer from the south of France to Figueres without any podium obligations.

What’s more, he lost no time in doing so, with Gaudu only leaping ahead of him in the general classification due to countback with the pair still sitting on equal time after four days of action.

And while he won’t be desperate to sign up for the media responsibilities and formalities which come with leading at this early point in the Vuelta, he knows that he has the team around him to make a bit of a statement here.

Just as he was right up there for the hilltop finish in Limone Piemonte on Sunday, pipping Giulio Ciccone in a photo finish, and was then competing at the pointy end the following day in Ceres, he has shown an inclination to be the lead figure in this race rather than bide his time in the way that Primoz Roglic did on his way to red 12 months ago.

Visma will probably leave Victor Campenaerts to do a lot of the harder yards given his TT record, but they all appear ready to pull for their leader, and in the likes of Matteo Jorgenson, Dylan van Baarle and Wilco Kelderman they have a heap of trusted, technical talents.