La Vuelta Femenina: Žigart soars to sixth overall on L’Angliru.

La Vuelta Femenina: Žigart soars to sixth overall on L’Angliru.

Our squad leaves Spain with a stage win, a top ten on the GC, and third place in the team’s classification.

Urška Žigart delivered an exceptionally strong ride, demonstrating both calmness and a clinical mindset, making a remarkable jump on the overall standings and claiming her best ever Grand Tour result in six participations.

The season’s first Grand Tour came to a conclusion on the ruthless gradients of one of cycling’s “impossible” climbs, the Angliru; 12.4 kilometers in length and boasting an average gradient of 9.7%, the daunting Asturian ascent featured at the end of this edition’s longest and hardest stage. Its brutal ramps, some pitching to 23%, quickly split an already depleted peloton and widened the gaps between the GC contenders.

Multiple Slovenian Champion Urška Žigart started the day in twelfth place, but thanks to a fantastic resilience, grit and a smart pacing strategy, she gradually made her way into the top ten. With each meter of this seemingly endless climb, Urška overtook and left behind many of the riders ahead of her in the standings, as she continued to push a steady rhythm that netted her a strong seventh on the line. Thanks to this result, she enjoyed an impressive surge up the ranking, finishing La Vuelta in sixth place.

“My team did an amazing job today and I am grateful for that and for protecting me the entire day. I felt like everything clicked today and all the pieces fell into the right place. It was a brutal climb, but I focused just on myself and on giving my best, and the result I took here is something that gives me a lot of confidence for the next races with AG Insurance - Soudal”, a happy Urška said at the finish.

“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. In the end we finish 6th and 11th in the general classification with Urška 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”, concluded a satisfied sports director Fien Delbaere.