Mads Pedersen claims first La Vuelta victory with dominant Stage 15 sprint as GC contenders take things easy

Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) claimed his first victory of La Vuelta 2025 with a superb sprint to claim the spoils from a tricky Stage 15.

The Danish star, holder of the green jersey, was part of a nine-rider breakaway who led the way in the closing stages after a semi-mountainous 167.9km run from Vegadeo to Monforte de Lemos.

Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Louis Vervaeke (Soudal-Quick-Step) were in a two-man breakaway for much of the day but were caught with eight kilometres to go.

And Pedersen held off his rivals with a controlled sprint to finish lengths clear, leaving him time to celebrate before he reached the line.

After two brutal mountaintop finishes, a stage with plenty of frontloaded climbing and an easier run-in had breakaway written all over it. The long, steady ascents suited the characteristics acquired by Pedersen since the start of the season, and the Dane was a strong favourite to at least challenge for the victory.

And no rider wanted it more. He admitted at the start that taking home the green jersey without winning a stage would, to him at least, represent a failure.

No surprise then to find him among the earliest attackers, with riders yo-yoing up and down throughout the first Category 1 climb. With or without the help of others Vine was intent on strengthening his grip on he mountains jersey. He successfully added the maximum 10 points to his haul from the first category Puerto a Garganta.

As the road rollercoastered along a big break of more than 40 riders eventually formed but only on the second climb, the Alto de Barbeitos, did the elastic stretching back to the bunch well and truly snap. On the easy gradients, perfectly suited to Pedersen, 90 seconds doubled to three minutes and soon becoming five. Pedersen had four team-mates for company. As arguably the strongest rider in the group it became clear the rest were going to have to play it super smart to get the better of him.

Vine looked to leverage his own strengths, taking off ahead of the second summit not just for the mountains points but with his eyes on taking an unprecedented - in this century - eighth stage win for his team. He had Soudal Quick-Step's Louis Vervaeke for company and the pair worked well, building - or being allowed to build - a three-minute lead over the 45km that followed.

The peloton, for its part, was practically slow pedalling, allowing those intent on racing to grow their lead to over 10 minutes for the first time this Vuelta. The best-placed rider up the road was Soudal Quick-Step's Junior Lecerf. At more than 18 minutes behind altough he represented no threat to the race lead, he had a chance of moving into the top 10.

Lidl-Trek knew the teams around them were looking to them to lock down Vine and Vervaeke and eventually reel them in, but they were unwilling to overcommit capacity to the chase. Movistar - who also had three riders in the group - briefly offered the legs of Javier Romo but his contribution was interrupted by a crash caused by a protester on the road at 52km to go.

The American team had no choice but to go for it. Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier, Carlos Verona, Giulio Ciccone and Julien Bernard all took strong turns on the front, bringing the gap down to under a minute by the intermediate sprint.

That, however, only inspired attacks out of the group from riders keen to prevent a Pedersen procession to the line. Pedersen himself had no choice but to follow as the larger chase group exploded on an uncategorized ascent. That led to the establishment of a smaller splinter selection establishing, comprising of Pedersen plus Orluis Aular (Movistar), Magnus Sheffield andEgan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), Eddie Dunbar (Jayco AlUla) and Marco Frigo (Israel Premier Tech). The numerical odds were no longer in Pedersen's favour but he was still the rider to beat.

First they had to finish off the pair up the road, a task eventually completed with 8km to go. Few from the now nine, apart from Pedersen, wanted to take the race to the line but they were unable to shed him, as the green jersey tracked every move and kept the overall speed as high as possible.

Frigo gave it one last try, accelerating into the final corner at 500m from the line, before launching his sprint out of. That was perfect for Pedersen who was able to use him as a lead-out, coming off the wheel at 100m to go, and taking off to a memorable victory secured with 10 metres to spare and time to celebrate.

The win was an especially satisfying one for Pedersen, given the contextual challenges faced by him and his team.

"In the end it makes it even nicer to win when everyone is looking at us," he said afterwards. "Everyone knew our plan, and still we succeeded."

The red jersey group was delivered by Bahrain Victorious more than 13 minutes down. Despite their best efforts they were unable to prevent Torstein Traeen slipping to 10th in the general classification, as Lecerf finished the second week in ninth place.

Watch and stream La Vuelta on TNT Sports and discovery+