This last week restarts from the ~~gree~~browneries of Galicia and heads to Madrid in the centre of the country, through Castile-and-Leon and the Sierra near Madrid, which requires several long transfers as the stages themselves do not progress much in the right direction. The Time Trial will be held on Thrusday in Valladolid.
Standings after stage 15
General
- J. Vingegaard 🇩🇰 Visma
- J. Almeida 🇵🇹 UAE – 48″
- T. Pidcock 🇬🇧 Q36.5 – 2′38″
- J. Hindley 🇦🇺 Bora – 3′10″
- F. Gall 🇨🇠Décathlon – 3′30″
- G. Pellizzari 🇮🇹 Bora – 4′21″
- M. Ricitello 🇺🇸 Visma – 4′53″
- S. Kuss 🇺🇸 Visma – 5′46″
- J. Lecerf 🇧🇪 Soudal-QS – 5′49″
- T. Træen 🇳🇴 Bahrain – 6′33″
Lecerf enters top-10 thanks to the large breakaway on stage #15, which was given some 13 free minutes by the peloton. Ciccone drops despite being in the same breakaway, as he had lost a lot on the mountain stages.
Points
- M. Pedersen 🇩🇰 Lidl-trek – 237 pts (+117)
- J. Vingegaard 🇩🇰 Visma – 139 pts (+39)
- G. Ciccone 🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek – 88 pts (+27)
- E. Vernon 🇬🇧 IPT – 111 pts (=0)
- J. Philipsen 🇧🇪 Alpecin – 105 pts (=0)
The composition of top-5 hasn't changed, but its structure has. After two relatively sluggish stages blocks in that respect, Pedersen finally created a significant gap by going into breakaways (and those weren't easy ones!) and grabbing many Intermediate Sprints, as well as winning stage #15. Vernon, who was previously going for I.S., didn't score a single point; neither did Philipsen (who wasn't).
Mountain
- J. Vine 🇦🇺 UAE – 61 pts (+27)
- J. Vingegaard 🇩🇰 Visma – 39 pts (+24)
- L. Vervaeke 🇧🇪 Soudal-QS – 32 pts (+9)
- J. Almeida 🇵🇹 UAE – 29 pts (+25)
- J. Ayuso 🇪🇸 UAE – 26 pts (+6)
- M. Soler 🇪🇸 UAE – 26 pts (+26)
Quinn and Nicolau left top-5. Vine kept on accumulating points in breakaways, to keep the two GC guys at bay. Soler scored all his points during this block.
Teams (rounded)
- UAE 🇳🇱
- Visma – 35′
- Bora – 1h05′
- Décathlon – 1h07′
- Caja Rural – 1h24′
Soudal-QS, Astana and Bahrain follow closely. First and second places seem to be anchored now. The performance of the Pro Team Caja Rural is noteworthy. The bottom of the classification is occupied by a quatuor of French and Belgian teams, 5 hours and more behind, which do worse than the weak Burgos team reduced to 4 men (among said teams, only Alpecin is voluntarily only playing sprints).
The answer was: nowt.
UAE didn't put anyone in the large breakaway, lead the peloton all day but only caught the breakaway a couple of miles from the line despite the breakaway having never managed to build any gap, therefore UAE didn't go for intermediate time bonuses, didn't attempt to accelerate or anything potentially destabilising for other teams, and never attacked through any of its riders at any moment.
Pidcock🇬🇧, who was on the verge of breaking all (last) climb long, managed to stay in the lead group; group which was even caught up by Riccitello🇺🇸 in the end. The former thus manages to stay on the podium, and the latter grabs the White Jersey from Pelizzari🇮🇹 who failed hard today.
Kuss🇺🇸 passes Gall🇦🇹 in GC thanks to the time bonus at the finish for 2^nd^ place behind his leader Vingegaard🇩🇰 (I mean, on top of the fact that Gall🇦🇹 was dropped too early, but this alone wasn't enough).
Ciccone🇮🇹 finished only 1 minute behind Kuss🇺🇸 despite having been in the breakaway all day! (I guess this is also telling about the 'sustained' pace UAE was supposed to impose all day).