MADRID, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- Mads Pedersen of Trek Sagafredo won the 13th stage of the Vuelta a Espana cycle race on Friday.
The Danish rider, who is wearing the green jersey for the points competition, was the strongest in the uphill sprint finish at the end of a rolling 168-kilometer stage between Ronda and Montilla.
Although the stage didn't have any classified climbs, its continued ups and downs, allowed no respite, with the last five kilometers nearly all uphill and the last kilometer having a gradient of 5 percent.
The stage perfectly suited Pedersen's characteristics as a powerful spring 'classics' rider and he rode a perfect stage, with his team leaving him in the correct position to control the sprint and finish comfortably ahead of Cofidis' Bryan Coquard and Pascal Ackermann of UAE Team Emirates.
There were no changes in the overall standings where Remco Evenepoel of Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl maintains a two minutes and 41 seconds lead over Primoz Roglic of Jumbo Visma, with Movistar's Enric Mas a further 22 seconds behind.
The day began with some controversy when youngster Juan Ayuso Pesquera of the UAE team, currently placed fifth in the overall standings, continued in the race, despite testing positive for Covid-19, when other riders, such as Pavel Sivakov of Ineos Grenadiers and Simon Yates of Bike Exchange-Jayco withdrew for the same reason 48 hours earlier.
The weekend promises to be decisive for the race with two consecutive high-mountain stages, which will be ridden in temperatures expected to be over 30 degrees centigrade, where Evenepoel's rivals will have to try and attack him if they want to win the race. ■
