Pedersen wins Vuelta 19th stage as Evenepoel stays safe

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.

But the Belgian was given the same time as the main bunch because he was less than 3km from the finish when he stopped.

He said those events were on his mind on Friday and he was just aiming to make it to the last 3km “in case I would get a flat tire or a bike problem. It’s just to stay safe, because tomorrow is the last day and the biggest fear today was to have a crash or to be unlucky. So that’s why we were trying to stay in front.”

“Then, the last 1.3km was a straight line, so then I could slow a bit down and just follow the wheels.”

Saturday’s 20th