PIORNAL, SPAIN: Mads Pedersen surged away from his sprint rivals on Friday to take the 19th stage, his third victory in the last seven Vuelta a Espana stages, while race leader Remco Evenepoel finished comfortably in the pack.
Pedersen, a Dane who rides for Trek, powered away from Fred Wright and Belgian Gianni Vermeersch, to take the 138.3km stage that began and ended in Talavera de la Reina in central Spain.
With two stages to race, Belgian Evenepoel of Quick-Step remained two minutes and seven seconds ahead of Spaniard Enric Mas and 5min 14sec clear of third-placed Juan Ayuso.
The stage ended in a sprint after the pack reeled in a powerful breakaway. “It was very hard to control the peloton, the team did an impressive job,” said Pedersen. “I have to say thank you to the guys because without them I had no chance to win today.” Evenepoel said he had done a deal with the winner to help ensure the pack finished together. “This was the perfect race,” said Evenepoel. “I promised Mads to control the breakaway with him, so we did our job.” On Tuesday, when his closest rival Primoz Roglic suffered a race-ending crash, Evenepoel also had a scare when he punctured.