Mads Pedersen lands hat-trick as Fred Wright falls just short on Stage 19 at La Vuelta

Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) ensured that Stage 19 stuck to the script by winning from a reduced bunch sprint in the streets of Talavera de la Reina on a day where La Vuelta paid tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) took second place and fellow Briton Ben Turner (Ineos Grenadiers) took fourth place in the short but sharp 138.3km stage in central Spain, which was preceded by a minute’s silence to commemorate the Queen.

A breakaway of three riders broke clear before the first of two ascents of the Puerto del Pielago but its advantage never grew much more than three minutes thanks to the marshalling of Pedersen’s Trek team-mates.

Through a hefty tempo, Trek not only managed to neutralise the chances of the leading trio, but also ensured that the lion’s share of Pedersen’s sprint rivals were shelled out the back of the peloton on the second ascent.

Pedersen then kept his side of the bargain by beating Wright by a bike length, with Belgium’s Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Turner and Dutchman Mike Teunissen (Jumbo-Visma) completing the top five.

Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) finished safely in the main pack to retain the red jersey ahead of Saturday’s penultimate stage, a challenging 181km test through the Guardarrama mountain range west of Madrid.

Evenepoel will enter Stage 20 with a 2’07” lead over his closest challenger, the Spaniard Enric Mas, whose Movistar team kept the pressure up on the race leader on the second climb of the day, but never put the 22-year-old under any serious pressure.

More to follow.

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