Nobody wanted to hold the race together
Stage 19 of the Vuelta a España ran 210 kilometres from Vélez-Málaga to the long climb above Estepona, and for the first 70 of them the peloton refused to let anything settle. Seven riders went clear on the flat opening section, Tobias Johannessen, Steven Kruijswijk and Kevin Vermaerke among them, but the gap never grew and the move died as soon as the road tilted upwards.
What followed looked like a second race start. Dozens of riders attacked on the early climbs. Richard Carapaz and Oscar Onley went on the second categorised ascent, and with Movistar declining to control anything, Enric Mas found himself answering moves from Carapaz and Primoz Roglic between groups.
Carapaz did get clear, helped by Darren Rafferty, then lost him to a mechanical at the worst possible moment, on flat roads with Decathlon chasing hard behind. The breakaway that finally stuck numbered 16 riders, Dunbar, Urko Berrade, Santiago Buitrago, Bastien Tronchon and Pablo Castrillo among them.
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A stage decided in 500 metres
On the 18-kilometre climb to Peñas Blancas, Rudy Molard attacked first. Buitrago, who leads the mountains classification, went with 13 kilometres remaining and Tom Gloag followed. Berrade and Gloag’s team-mate Dunbar bridged across, making four at the front.
Buitrago attacked the Pinarello pair inside the final two kilometres and looked to have the stage. Dunbar answered on the hardest section, caught him with 500 metres to go and went past without hesitating. He finished in 5:00:54, 14 seconds clear of Buitrago, with Gloag third at 23 seconds.
It is Dunbar’s third Vuelta stage win. He took two in 2024, also in the closing days of the race, which makes this the second time the Irishman has found his form exactly when the Spanish Grand Tour runs out of road.
The general classification did not move
Roglic attacked with two kilometres left and Mas went with him. Felix Gall tried. Jakob Omrzel put Oscar Onley under real pressure and was brought back inside the last few hundred metres. None of it changed the standings. The favourites were matched all the way up.
Mas keeps the red jersey with 1:37 on Roglic. Two stages remain, and Saturday’s is the harder of them. Roglic has one mountain day left to find the minute and a half that Peñas Blancas would not give him.
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