Jasper Philipsen won stage 19 of the Vuelta a Espana, his third stage win at this year’s race, with a superb bunch sprint in Guijuelo.
The Belgian secured his hat-trick by powering past points classification leader Mads Pedersen and Orluis Aular down the final straight.
It was just reward for Philipsen and his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammates, who had slogged through a grimly mountainous second week of the Vuelta and clung on for this chance at a rare win in a grand tour that is famously unfriendly to sprinters.
Ineos Grenadiers’ British rider Ben Turner, who surprised the purer sprinters by winning stage four, was fourth at the end of the 162km ride from Rueda.
“It was a really, really tough finish line,” Philipsen said. “Definitely after 11 days not going as deep, it hurts. We knew what it was going to be like, the team did an amazing pull, amazing timing towards the last kilometre.
“It was just the final kilometre all-out. It’s definitely a team job, the whole Vuelta already the team was super strong. I was struggling in the wheel [of my teammates] but I saw the finish line and I pushed through.”
Race leader Jonas Vingegaard eked out another four seconds over his rival Joao Almeida, who sits second overall.
Portuguese Almeida had cut his deficit by 10 seconds in Friday’s time trial, trailing the Dane by 40 seconds going into Saturday’s stage, but immediately lost nearly half that advantage as his UAE Team Emirates-XRG outfit were caught out by a well-timed attack from the red jersey.
Vingegaard accelerated alongside some teammates ahead of the intermediate sprint, picking up four bonus seconds to extend his lead over Almeida, who picked up none.
The attack means Vingegaard leads by 44 seconds going into the penultimate stage of the race and final general classification showdown, a brutal day in the mountains with a summit finish on the Bola del Mundo outside Madrid.
Tom Pidcock remains third overall, now at 2’43” down on Vingegaard, with former Giro d’Italia winner Jai Hindley 3’22” behind in fourth.
