La Vuelta ciclista a España

One day after conquering the summit finish of Alto del Piornal, Remco Evenepoel navigated a rather quiet stage surrounded by his Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl teammates and will go into the final weekend of the race with the red jersey on his shoulders.

Starting and finishing in Talavera de la Reina, a city tracing its history back to the days of the Celts, stage 19 consisted of a circuit featuring the Puerto del Pielago climb, which the peloton tackled twice. As the second of these ascents came more than 42 kilometers from the finish, there weren’t any attacks from the GC riders, with the teams focusing instead on keeping things together for a reduced bunch sprint.

The victory went to Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo), while the overall leader of the competition came home safely in the bunch and went to the podium to receive his 14th consecutive red jersey: “The start was fast, but things calmed down once a breakaway formed and then the second lap was quite relaxed. I expect things to be quite different on Saturday, we have a hard stage scheduled and there’s a possibility to see many attacks launched by my opponents from the start. We remain confident and hope to do a good stage.”

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