Vuelta a España: Mads Pedersen secures hard-fought victory from breakaway sprint on stage 15

Mads Pedersen finally scored for Lidl-Trek, winning stage 15 of the Vuelta a España on Sunday, sprinting to the victory from a group of nine who had escaped a huge breakaway of 47 riders.

Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Louis Vervaeke (Soudal-QuickStep) attacked that group more than 100km from the finish, putting pressure on the team that had five men in the day’s huge breakaway.

However, Pedersen managed to join a splinter group of seven, which bridged to the two leaders, reaching them with 8km to go.

Despite that pressure, the nine-man group worked well until two kilometres to go, when the attacks began. Pedersen was forced to follow every one of them until he sprinted to the win, beating Orluis Aular (Movistar) into second place, with Marco Frigo (Bahrain Victorious) third.

With the break forming on the early classified climb, inside the first 16km, the peloton allowed them a lead which exceeded 14 minutes, only dropping below that mark just before Pedersen took the win.

Eventually, Bahrain-Victorious took over the pace setting successfully preserving Torstein Træen’s ninth place in the general classification. Træen slipped to 10th overall, with breakaway rider Junior Lecerf’s (Soudal-QuickStep) move to ninth the only change in the top 10.

Lidl-Trek were flying at the start of the Vuelta, taking multiple top stage placings, but had been unable to take a stage win until now. Wearing the green jersey of the points classification leader, Pedersen had been asked before the stage whether he would be happy winning the classification without taking a stage win, responding with a resounding no.

Pedersen had initially missed Sunday’s breakaway and was forced to bridge to it on the day’s opening climb, only reaching the front on the ensuing descent.

“I really wanted to have a win, and today we succeeded, so that’s amazing,” Pedersen said. “The way the team worked the whole day, five guys in the first group and when the two guys went away on the second KOM, they were really strong and got a lot of time, and the boys were working so hard to make it possible. So yeah, in the end, it makes it even nicer to win when everyone is looking at us and everyone knew our plan, and still we succeed with a victory that’s absolutely incredible.”

Despite that plan being obvious, it was only in the closing couple of kilometres that cooperation in the leading group broke down, with others attacking the Dane.

“I had to follow everything keep the speed a bit high so none really wanted to go and then when Frigo he went I would say 7, 800m to go that was perfect because he would kind of do the lead out so I was closing in slowly and after the corner it was 220m to go so it was time to open the sprint.”

How it unfolded

After two brutal mountain top finishes, stage 15 was slightly less daunting, taking the peloton 167.8km between Vegadeo and Monforte de Lemos. While the finish might have been easier, the stage still climbed a total of 3,300m, and the day’s only first category climb began immediately after the flag dropped, the Puerto a Garanta cresting after 16.4km.

A second categorised climb topped out 113km from the line, and while the route continued to be lumpy all the way, the general trend was downhill to the line.

Immediately after the flag dropped, Jakub Otruba (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) attacked and quickly built a lead of almost two minutes, while behind there was a battle to join him in the day’s breakaway.

A large group of 14 got a small gap on the chasing peloton, and from that, Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) set off in pursuit, eventually reaching the front, though with a huge group close behind.

When the leading duo finally crested the top of the opening climb, 16.5km in, the chasing group had split, though on the descent, a 47-man group formed, with Junior Lecerf (Soudal-QuickStep) the best placed on GC at 18:57 and Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) the only others within 30 minutes. With that in mind, the peloton allowed the breakaway a lead which eventually reached 13 minutes.

In the leading group, Vine further extended his mountains classification lead, not only winning maximum points on the first classified climb, but attacking with Louis Vervaeke (Soudal-QuickStep) on the second, repeating the performance.

The pair built a lead of 1:40 on the descent and in the ensuing kilometres, but with Lidl-Trek still searching for a stage win and present in the break with five riders, they would need to work hard to stay away with more than 100km to go. The leading duo had not read the script, though, and their lead extended to 2:40 and only began to come down inside the final 45km.

With the gap at 1:20 and 36km to go, a flurry of attacks in the chasers produced a further group of seven with Bernal and his Ineos teammate, Magnus Sheffield, as well as Pedersen, Orluis Aular (Movistar), Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-Alula) and Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech).

This move brought Vine and Vervaeke to within 20 seconds with 20km to go, while they were only caught inside the final 10km.

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