MADRID, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Remy Cavagna (Deceuninck-Quick Step) won the 19th stage of the Vuelta de Espana cycle race on Friday after a dramatic 165 kilometer stage between Avila and Toledo in central Spain.
Cavagna was part of a breakaway which escaped from the main peloton on a sharp climb at the start of the stage and which was able to open enough of a gap to stay clear until the end of the day.
The French cyclist launched his own attack on the breakaway with 24 kilometers remaining in the stage and although his lead was agonizingly reduced over the last five kilometers, he had the strength to finish five second ahead of Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe).
There was controversy in the stage after a fall on a corner with 65 kilometers remaining which caught up race leader Primoz Roglic and his Jumbo-Visma team and the Astana team of Miguel Angel Lopez, who is fourth overall.
However, rather than ease up as convention usually demands, the Movistar team of second placed Alejandro Valverde and third placed Nairo Quintana attacked for around 10 kilometers, before finally easing up and allow Roglic and Lopez to catch up.
The fall had a further negative aspect for Roglic as one of his key team-mates Tony Martin was forced to abandon through injury.
The remaining kilometers saw a lot of nerves in the main peloton as crosswinds threatened to produce splits among the riders and in the final meters Valverde was able to take three seconds from Roglic to reduce his lead to 2 minutes and 47 seconds ahead of the penultimate stage which takes in six categorized climbs and around 4,000 meters of climbing.
