Slovenian Champion Urska Zigart started the day sitting 12th in the general classification. Instead of going too hard on the steepest parts and blowing up, she rode at her own steady pace. As the climb went on, she passed several riders who had gone out too fast ahead of her, crossing the finish line in a solid seventh place on the stage.
Because of this smart pacing, Zigart jumped up the leaderboard to finish sixth overall. This is her best GC result ever in six Grand Tour starts.
Along with Zigart’s overall finish, AG Insurance – Soudal Team also took third in the team classification. Sports director Fien Delbaere was very pleased with how the riders worked together on the Spanish roads.
“Before this La Vuelta ’26, we had two goals: winning a stage and finishing top-10 with Urska in the general classification. I’m really happy how this week went and we could tick off both objectives, with the second stage won by Shari,. . Next to that, we wore three days the white jersey for the best-young-rider with Lore and one day the mountain jersey with Ashleigh, where we finished second in both classifications,” Delbaere stated.
“In the end we finish 6th and 11th in the general classification with Urska and Lore, what is a great result for both of them and the team. It’s a pity that Lore misses the top-10 with only one second and Ashleigh came close to the QOM jersey today but overall I’m really proud about the performances of the whole team.Everybody did a really good job this week. We had a plan and everybody really committed to that plan. So every one of the team can go home as a happy person, looking back to the past week.”