Vuelta a España 2026: Wout van Aert wins a late two-up sprint in Loja, Enric Mas keeps a firm grip on red

A 43-rider breakaway, with three cards for Visma to play

An early four-man dig on the Puerto de los Guájares, barely six kilometres into the stage, never got the run it needed and was caught before the top. What followed was a long war of attrition over the rolling roads toward Loja, with attack after attack going up the road until the bunch finally let an enormous 43-rider group ride clear — nearly a third of the whole peloton. Visma-Lease a Bike made sure it was well represented, sending green jersey Wout van Aert, Matthew Brennan and road captain Bruno Armirail into the move.

With none of the escapees anywhere near the overall standings, Enric Mas's Movistar squad was happy to sit up and let the gap balloon to several minutes, saving their legs for the mountains still to come. Inside the final kilometres the break itself turned into a race of its own, and it was Brennan who did the heaviest lifting, chasing down move after move so that his team leader would have a clean shot at the finish.

Van Aert attacks with 3.8 kilometres to go, Brennan wins the sprint for third

With 3.8 kilometres left, Van Aert finally showed his hand, jumping clear on a short rise. Only Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-Quick Step) could go with him, and the French climber was already toiling to hold the wheel as the two opened a gap that never looked like closing. In the sprint, Van Aert simply had too much left, taking his first stage win of this Vuelta after coming so close on several earlier occasions. Behind them, Brennan — having burned matches all afternoon — still had the legs to win the sprint of the chase group for third, edging Jarno Widar, Vincenzo Albanese, Finn Fisher-Black and Kevin Vermaerke, who were all credited with the same time.

The stage 13 result

1. Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), 4:34:00; 2. Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-Quick Step), same time; 3. Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike), at 24 seconds; 4. Jarno Widar (Lotto), same time; 5. Vincenzo Albanese (EF Education-EasyPost), same time; 6. Finn Fisher-Black, same time; 7. Kevin Vermaerke, same time; 8. Léo Bisiaux (Decathlon-CMA CGM), at 28 seconds; 9. Simon Dalby, at 32 seconds; 10. Filippo Zana, at 45 seconds. The best-placed of the day's many breakaway survivors outside the top ten was Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), 27th at 50 seconds.

The general classification after thirteen stages

With the group of favourites essentially riding tempo to the finish, the top of the general classification barely moved: Enric Mas remains the leader, still 1:45 clear of Primož Roglič and 2:06 clear of Felix Gall. Richard Carapaz is fourth at 3:53, ahead of Oscar Onley (+4:29), Jakob Omrzel (+4:59), Mattias Skjelmose (+5:32), Sepp Kuss (+7:58), Harold Tejada (+8:33) and Clément Berthet (+11:06).

Skjelmose provided the day's biggest GC subplot: the Dane joined the 43-rider breakaway and at one point held nearly four minutes on the red jersey group, briefly flirting with a run at Gall's podium spot, before the gap came back down on the approach to Loja. He still crossed the line 2:10 clear of the Mas group, enough to trim his overall deficit from 7:42 to 5:32 without changing his seventh place. The jerseys otherwise tell a settled story: Mas keeps red, Van Aert stretched his green jersey lead further after adding today's bonus seconds and sprint points to his tally, Santiago Buitrago retains the polka-dot mountains jersey, and Oscar Onley's cushion over Omrzel in the young rider classification is unchanged at 30 seconds.

Looking ahead: the feared Sierra de la Pandera in stage 14

Saturday 5 September brings stage 14, a short but brutal 152.7-kilometre stage from Jaén to the Sierra de la Pandera — one of the steepest and most feared summit finishes in all of Spain, right in the heart of the Andalusian heat. Check the route on our stage 14 page, or read our week 2 preview for everything on the rest of this mountain week.

Want to catch up on the rest of this Vuelta? Read our stage 12 report from Calar Alto, the stage 9 report from the Alto de Aitana or the complete guide to the 2026 Vuelta a España.