La Vuelta 2025 Stage 15 LIVE - Mads Pedersen finally adds stage win to his green jersey success, with brute force breakaway finish

Which, despite Bahrain's best efforts, moves Junior Lecerf up to 9th, Matteo Jorgenson out of the top ten, and leaves Torstein Traeen just hanging on in there.

Still with 5km to ride, they're looking to protect the ninth place of Torstein Traeen.

That was a brute force victory and it was his all day. He didn't deserve it, because that word has no place in sport, but he bloody earned it. They came round the last left corner, Magnus Sheffield slid out, and as Marco Frigo launched Pedersen was more than a match. Aular was second from Frigo.

FLAMME ROUGE: IT'S GOING THE DISTANCE
Aular wants a sprint finish. Pedersen needs a high pace to the end.

It has to be Pedersen who tracks.

Sheffield lets the wheel go, allows Bernal to follow, but Pedersen isn't really able to drop anyone.

Bernal and Sheffield, plus Dunbar, still doing their bit. Hard to see how any of the climbers can win here.

Just outside our finishing town. It's gamesmanship galore. No-one quite knows what to do, it seems. Pedersen is appreciating the high pace.

Vine and Vervaeke are caught and immediately an attack from Egan Bernal. Buitrago is watchful and there's no real gap gained. Pedersen does well to follow as well, and is prepared to do a turn. The best thing he can do is keep the pace high.

The last rise definitely hurt them. They've been out a long time and ten seconds, which looks longer on the screen than it will in reality, can be devoured in a flash, especially when the road rises even a little.

Adam thinks he needs to finish this off himself. If he's expecting those around him to help, he's going to be disappointed.

Adam nails his colours to the mast. I do and I don't. No-one deserves a win, except the winner, but he's a very likeable rider and a great ambassador for the sport. On the other hand, I can't not back my compatriot Eddie Dunbar. I would also love to see Mr Bernal mark a long and remarkable comeback.

A long straight road allows them to finally see the carrot. They look to have about 30 seconds on the rest but Mads Pedersen is struggling to keep them pedaling. Someone from this group is going to have to attack, surely, and then it will be up to him to follow.

Our colleague on the ground has sent over a video showing security struggling to get things under control at the final turn, 300m from the line.

He's set to gain thirteen minutes as things stand, which would see him move up into the top ten in the general classification.

Orluis Aular, Magnus Sheffield, Eddie Dunbar and Marco Frigo joing Pedersen, Bernal and Buitrago. Will they be able to succesfully turn this into a race-winning cooperative or are they going to have the same problems writ smaller. Now just thirty seconds to Vine and Vervaeke but the equation is much more complicated than when they were just up against lots of Lidl-Trek.

Seven of them I count now just 34 seconds behind Vine and Vervaeke, maybe less. It's stop start in the larger group behind. Lidl-Trek are playing the part of disruptors well.

As the gap falls precipitously it was inevitable that we would start to see some attacks. The catalyst was a not insignificant uncategorized climb and a move from Buitrago and Bernal - assisted by Kwiatkowski - has blown the group apart. Mads Pedersen is watchful and willing to not just follow but work. "This is a big ring climb" notes Sean Kelly, astutely.