Enric Mas wins the Vuelta, Spain's first since Contador in 2014

Enric Mas crossed the line in Granada on Sunday with his Movistar teammates beside him and a winning margin of 2 minutes 15 seconds. The Mallorcan finished the Vuelta a Espana in 73 hours 52 minutes 55 seconds. Primoz Roglic of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe was second. Felix Gall of Decathlon-CMA CGM was third. It is Mas's first Grand Tour title. It is also the first Spanish win in the Vuelta since Alberto Contador in 2014.

Mas is 31. He had stood on the Vuelta podium in 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2024 and watched someone else pull on the red jersey. This year the race favourite, Tadej Pogacar, crashed out on stage eight after hitting a stone 32 kilometres from the finish. Pogacar had come to Spain looking to become the ninth rider to win all three Grand Tours in a career, and he had already won stage four by more than two minutes. When he left, the red jersey passed to a rider who had never led a Grand Tour.

Mas won the stage to the Aitana climb in Alicante, a day with about 5,000 metres of climbing, and used that result to take control. On stage 14 his teammate paced him up Sierra de la Pandera, putting 25 seconds into Roglic. On Saturday's penultimate stage in the Sierra Nevada he held his nerve on a day he later said could have cost him the race, and stretched the lead past two minutes heading into Sunday's short final stage.

Sunday's 112-kilometre circuit ran through Granada's centre and around the Alhambra. General classification times on the last lap were neutralised. Tobias Johannessen of Uno-X Mobility won the stage ahead of Alessandro Romele of XDS Astana and Ramses Debruyne of Alpecin-Premier Tech. Mas rolled in with the bunch. He called it a day of mixed emotions, all positive, and said athletes already think about the next goals. He had dreamed of the win, worked for it, and said the team needed a victory like this.

Wout van Aert of Visma-Lease a Bike took the green points jersey. Santiago Buitrago of Bahrain Victorious won the mountains classification. Oscar Onley of Netcompany-INEOS was the best young rider. Britain's Matthew Brennan won five stages on his Grand Tour debut and missed a sixth on the last day.

Movistar runs on a budget of about 25 million euros, ninth among WorldTour teams. UAE and Visma sit near 60 million and 55 million. The Spanish squad, which began as Reynolds and Banesto, has waited years for a Grand Tour while those richer teams collected them. Mas's win does not rewrite that money gap. It does give the team a red jersey on home roads and a rider who no longer has to answer questions about finishing second.

The sporting fact that will travel is simple. A three-time runner-up inherited a race when the favourite fell, then defended it through the Sierra Nevada instead of giving it back. Roglic, a multiple Vuelta winner, never closed the two minutes. Gall held third. The rest of the top ten included Finn Fisher-Black, Pello Bilbao, Axel Laurance, Pau Marti and Marco Brenner.

Spanish cycling had gone 12 years without a Vuelta champion. That drought ended on a Sunday in Granada, on a stage that was never going to change the clock, in front of a crowd that had watched Mas lose the same race four times. He already spoke about the next start list. The red jersey is his until someone takes it off him in another year.