La Vuelta Stage 6 Predictions: 8/1 and 28/1 picks in the punishing Pyrenees

Thursday’s Stage 6 of La Vuelta a Espana is the first day of road racing in the host country in the 2025 event, but it will still not finish in Spain itself as the riders face a punishing Pyrenean summit finish in the Andorran village of Pal (live on TNT Sports 3 from 13:30 BST, highlights at 22:00).

This should be a day in which the GC hopefuls truly show themselves, with race favourite Jonas Vingegaard having the red jersey to defend once more. My La Vuelta Stage 6 predictions follow for the first day in the high mountains.

La Vuelta Betting Odds

The 170.3km trip between Olot and Pal will take absolutely no prisoners, with an 11.1km climb up the category-three Collada de Santigosa (average 4.2% gradient) coming right from the uphill start.

The riders will then only drop a few hundred metres back towards sea level before beginning to go upwards once more, with the 24.4km Collada de Toses being the first of the day’s two Cat 1 mountains.

Once they hit that summit, 66.5km into the day’s proceedings, there is plenty of descending until they reach Andorra and begin the climb up to the top of the category-two Alto de la Comella, a sharp 4.2km 8% effort.

Then after the slight drop comes the real action of the day, with the last 9.6km of the stage taking the riders uphill to the finish line in Pal at an average 6.5% gradient.

This is definitely a day for the GC riders and climbing specialists, and we could see major splits in the pack both early and late in the action.

Vingegaard is the 2/1 favourite to win the stage with Betfred, while Lidl-Trek’s Giulio Ciccone is an 8/1 shout. David Gaudu, the surprise winner of Stage 3 to Ceres, is a 16/1 chance alongside Jay Vine.

Cycling Odds

Giulio Ciccone @ 8/1

When I backed Ciccone to complete the Grand Tour treble of King of the Mountains titles, I did so with days like this one in mind.

There are plenty of points on the line for the blue polka dot jersey, and the Italian may well fancy his chances of getting over the top of the majority of the four categorised climbs in front of the rest of the pack.

He was so close to achieving the stage victory I had him down for at Limone Piemonte on Sunday, with Vingegaard just nudging ahead of him in a photo finish.

But Jonas has more on his mind than just stage victories, and when it comes down to it in this one I don’t think he’ll mind too much if he doesn’t get first place so long as he doesn’t get gapped and lose more than the extra bonus seconds.

Ciccone is nine seconds back, so in theory is a threat to Vingegaard on GC. But in reality, there is no way the Lidl-Trek man has the all-round ability to trouble the Dane, and Vingegaard’s knowledge of this ought to be enough to allow Ciccone to get over the line first.

Eddie Dunbar E/W @ 28/1

I mean, why the heck not, right?

If Eddie Dunbar is here for anything right now, it has to be stage wins that are his bag. He made the most of being in a breakaway of over 30 riders in Stage 11 of last year’s Vuelta to record his first ever Grand Tour win.

Then he usurped Enric Mas to win Stage 20 later in the same event on the day Primoz Roglic regained the red jersey for good.

And having developed a taste for victory in Spain, you can well imagine he’ll want to try it again. Especially when you look at his returns so far. He has fared no better than 65th so far in this edition of La Vuelta, and after a poor ride for his Jayco Alula team on the Team Time Trial on Wednesday, you have to believe there’s a point to be proved at some stage.

So at 28/1 I’m backing Dunbar to show his undoubted quality. Sitting 128th in the GC standings, over 14 minutes off the pace, he should get all sorts of leeway if he manages to join a breakaway group of similarly-positioned riders.

He has certainly shown the form to do exactly that in the past.