Rare sight: Mads Pedersen skips breakaway in Vuelta a España, aiming to win stage 15

Andrea Bagioli and Carlos Verona were in the large leading group on behalf of Lidl-Trek, but they were unable to compete with stage winner Marc Soler of UAE Emirates-XRG. Furthermore, the German-American team suffered a setback with GC contender Giulio Ciccone, who has been riding with an infection for several days and lost 21 minutes.

As a result, the green jersey will have to come from Pedersen, who saw his compatriot Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) finish second and thus close the gap in the battle for the points classification. Pedersen now has 192 points, Vingegaard 139.

On Sunday, Pedersen is eager to extend that lead, he said after stage 14 in his short flash interview as green jersey wearer. “As I told you yesterday, today was a day to take it easy in the peloton. We'll see what happens tomorrow. It will certainly be tough, but it's a stage we want to try to win.”

The start, in particular, with 16.4 kilometers of climbing at 5.1 percent, will be tough on Sunday. After that obstacle, the route continues to undulate for about 80 kilometers, before the last 70 kilometers are mostly downhill.