The peloton faced a demanding stage on Thursday. With more than 3,000 meters of climbing and a final ascent featuring sections of more than 20 percent, it was a day for the climbers in eastern Spain. Van Aert had his sights set on making the breakaway and eventually succeeded after several attempts. At the foot of the penultimate climb, the Belgian comfortably took maximum points in the intermediate sprint before dropping back to the peloton.

“Taking those points ultimately became the main goal for today, because we weren't given much freedom up front. I quickly realized that the breakaway wasn't going to be given much room. It would have been nice to fight for the stage win, but that wasn't on the cards. It won't be easy to overtake Pogačar in the points classification. Of course, he won the stage today and picked up some extra points”, Van Aert says afterward.

The 31-year-old was referring to the two-man sprint in which overall race leader Pogačar beat Enric Mas. Shortly before that, the race had exploded on the final climb to Puerto El Bartolo. Sepp Kuss, Team Visma | Lease a Bike's highest-placed rider in the general classification, was unable to follow the leading group of favorites and finished eleventh. As a result, the American dropped from fourth to sixth place overall.