Vuelta a España: Standings at the 2021 race

After the Vuelta a España general classification battle of the last few days, stage 19 saw an enthralling battle between the breakaway and the peloton. Averaging speeds of over 40kph, the breakaway eluded the peloton’s clutches as Magnus Cort (EF Education-Nippo) took his third stage win of the race, while Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) retained the red jersey and the overall standings remain largely unchanged.

Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Materiaux), who began the day in tenth overall and had looked so strong on the Gamoniteiru, crashed on a seemingly innocuous stretch of road and was forced to abandon the race.

Other than Meintjes’ abandon, the overall standings did not change. The time gap opened up by Roglič over his rivals in the mountains remains the same; his closest rival, Enric Mas (Movistar Team) sits 2:30 back.

Movistar currently occupy both lower berths of the podium with Miguel Ángel López (Movistar Team) in third overall, a further 23 seconds behind Mas, his teammate. Like Roglič’s overall race lead, the Movistar duo have built their own comfortable buffer to protect their podium places since Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), in fourth overall at 4:36, lies nearly two minutes behind López.

Egan Bernal (Ineos-Grenadiers) sits just seven seconds behind Haig in fifth overall at 4:43 and his teammate Adam Yates is in sixth at 5:44.

Bahrain Victorious and Jumbo-Visma also have two representatives from their team in the top ten. Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) remains in seventh at 6:02 while Gino Mäder (Bahrain Victorious) is in eighth at 7:48.

Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) retains his ninth place at 8:31 while, following Meintjes’ misfortune, David de la Cruz (UAE Team Emirates) accomplishes what his attack failed to do so yesterday and moves up a place into tenth overall at 9:24.