Mad Pedersen claimed his long-awaited victory at this year’s Vuelta a España 2025 on stage 15 in a sprint finish from a group of nine.
The Lidl-Trek rider pipped Orluis Aular (Movistar) and Marco Frigo (Bahrain Victorious) on the line, as they rounded out the podium.
Before the start of the day, it was clear that all Pedersen wanted was a stage victory, despite holding onto the green jersey since the outset, but the win wasn’t guaranteed, as with over 3,000 metres of climbing, it was suited to the sprinter.
How it happened
It was all go from the off in Spain, as Jakub Otruba (Caja Rural–Seguros RGA) broke away alone from the peloton and established a strong two-minute lead even before reaching the Puerto a Garganta, the first climb of the day.
A 10-rider chase group went in pursuit of the leader, including Gijs Leemreize (Picnic PostNL), Vine and Pedersen, and initially struggled to break the elastic from the peloton, who continued to keep them in tow.
As more and more riders bridged to the chase group, Vine and Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) made a break as they made the 16.4km ascent up the Garganta, trailing behind Otruba by around 50 seconds, and within the next 10km, the pair successfully made the leap.
Before long, the pace became too much for Kwiatkowski as Vine and Otruba swiftly dropped him, before powering forward in a bid to secure the King of the Mountain points, with Vine crossing the line first.
However, while the pair climbed, their lead was eaten away by a Pedersen-Ciccone-led chase pack and on the descent, they were caught ahead of the next climb.
Now with the lead group sitting at 20 riders, they held a 20-second advantage over another large chase group. This lead was also eventually bridged, creating a 40-rider strong group at the front of the race.
With such a large pack at the head of the race, the peloton’s chase seemed futile as the leaders built their advantage to over three minutes across the next 10km.
At the front, the battle continued as Vine and Vervaeke fought for more points on the mountains, with the former continuing his dominance on the climbs and extending his lead to 22 points in the overall rankings.
From there, Vine and Vervaeke pushed on, to one minute 30 seconds ahead of the chasers, with the peloton nine minutes and 45 seconds adrift with 100km remaining, which only continued to grow across the next 30km, as the peloton fell behind by 12 minutes.
While Lidl led the charge in the chase group as they tried to rein in the duo at the front, it was not until 70km to go that the deficit stopped growing, when Movistar’s Carlos Canal and Javier Romo moved up front to support the chase.
With 60km to go, the lead pair were under three minutes ahead, an advantage which continued to tick down despite a crash in the group as Romo went down after a protester, holding a flag, was stood in the road.
Over the next 20km, the advantage now swung in the favour of the chasers, who had brought the deficit to one minute and 30 seconds, with Movistar and Lidl-Trek contributing the most to the effort.
It was too little too late for Mads Pedersen to take the maximum points in the intermediate sprint with just 30km remaining to Monforte de Lemos, as Vervaeke secured the full points, seconded by Vine, with Pedersen taking 15 points 90 seconds later.
The chase pack then broke apart as Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain-Victorious) and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) made a move on an uncategorised climb, followed by Pedersen, Aular, Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers), Eddie Dunbar (Jayco–AlUla) and Frigo.
This newly formed cooperative rode strongly to reduce the advantage of the lead pair to under 20 seconds, as the peloton still sat over 14 minutes behind that.
Through the 10km mark, their advantage was only 10 seconds, an advantage which was eaten up across another 4km, meaning Vine and Vervaeke’s 115km stint as the breakaway came to an end, as Pedersen led the charge to Monforte de Lemos.
The pace was high, but no one made a move as the nine riders played off each other until 2km to go. Each took in turns to attack, with Vervaeke going first, followed by Pedersen, then Vine, and finally Bernal.
In the last kilometre, no one had an advantage as nine became eight after Sheffield lost control on the final bend.
But it was Pedersen who finally took his first stage win at this Vuelta, outsprinting the remaining riders as Aular came in second with Frigo closing out the podium.
