Mads Pedersen wins stage 15 of La Vuelta - Dane thrives from breakaway adventure

Lidl-Trek hadn't ridden their best Vuelta a Espana thus far and after the difficulties of Giulio Ciccone, Mads Pedersen's lack of a victory had also been unusual. However, the Dane finally turned this around on stage 15, making his presence felt in the breakaway, and then covering all attacks to ride into victory in the final sprint.

The stage was known to be a day for the breakaway, with a 16-kilometer climb at the very start of the stage and no-one willing to control the breakaway of the day with so many climbs but a flat finish. Hence unsurpringly, most of the riders who made an attempt moved to the head of the race, forming a breakaway of almost 50 riders, featuring several of the stage favourites such as Mads Pedersen, Orluis Aular and Jake Stewart who would favour a sprint.

From these several dozen riders however two went clear still very far from the finish, Jay Vine and Louis Vervaeke. The group was extremely large but with no cooperation, their gap grew to 3 minutes - whilst the peloton rode calmly all day long, not chasing the breakaway with intention of fighting for the stage win. However Lidl-Trek, with five riders in front, could chase on.

A protestor caused a crash in the breakaway, and the finale was also jeopardized as once again an anti-Israel group broke through the barriers to threaten the race - however this seemed to be contained in time.

In the final small hilltop of the stage there were attacks and here a new group in front was formed with Egan Bernal, Santiago Buitrago, Eddie Dunbar, Magnus Sheffield... But also the two strongest sprinters in Pedersen and Aular. However without any other climb to tackle in the last 25 kilometers, the group had no choice but to collaborate to catch the front duo, which happened with 6 kilometers to go. Egan Bernal quickly launched the first attack, opening a tactical battle for the win.

There were several attacks, including Pedersen himself who didn't want to take the race into a sprint. Marco Frigo launched a late attack trying to surprise, but the Dane followed him and then in the final sprint took the victory in Monforte de Lemos. Orluis Aular rode to second whilst Frigo was third.