The Danish cyclist Mads Pedersen sprinted to victory in stage 15 of the Vuelta a España on Sunday as his compatriot Jonas Vingegaard retained the overall lead in the 167.8km ride from Vegadeo.
Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), the points classification leader, attacked in the last two kilometres, beating Orluis Aular (Movistar) and Marco Frigo (Israel Premier Tech) in a photo-finish at Monforte de Lemos.
Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) did not attempt to chase down the leaders and sat in the peloton, along with João Almeida and Tom Pidcock, his closest rivals in the race for the red jersey. The peloton finished 13 minutes and 31 seconds after Pedersen.
Almeida stayed second in the general classification, sitting 48 seconds behind Vingegaard, while Pidcock remained third, trailing the leader by two minutes and 38 seconds.
A 16.5km category-one climb to Puerto de la Garganta tested riders early in the stage, as Jakub Otruba made an early attack but was overtaken at the summit by Jay Vine. Two chasing groups that had broken from the peloton soon caught up with Vine and Otruba, forming a pack of over 40 riders at the front, with the peloton trailing by over three minutes.
Vine and Louis Vervaeke soon attacked to become the new leading duo, while the peloton, which included Vingegaard, Almeida and Pidcock, did not react as they fell nine minutes and 40 seconds behind the leaders going into the last 100km.
The Lidl-Trek riders Julien Bernard and Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier led a chasing group along with Javier Romo, reducing their gap with the leaders to around two minutes and 20 seconds as they neared the final 50km of the stage. Romo suffered a crash moments after a man with a Palestinian flag tried to run up to the riders and a policeman ran across the road towards the spectator. Romo got back up and returned to the chasing group in the next five minutes.
Pedersen joined an attack from the chasing group going into the last 30km, as seven riders broke away to chase down the leaders, who were 40 seconds ahead. The breakaway riders caught Vine and Vervaeke in the last seven kilometres. Vine tried to attack again in the last kilometre but failed as Pedersen was the first to the finish line, going 98 points ahead of Vingegaard in the race for the green jersey.