2019 Vuelta a España Stage 9 Results & Recap
Stage 9 of the 2019 Vuelta a España is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Pogacar wins stage 9
Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) won stage 9 of the Vuelta a Espana after attacking out of a group of GC favorites to clinch victory atop the Cortals d’Encamp, his first ever on the grand tour stage.
Nairo Quintana (Movistar) finished second, 23 seconds behind. Primož Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) was third at 48 seconds. The Colombian’s finish put him into the red jersey ahead of Roglic by six seconds. Lopez remains in third overall at 17 seconds and Valverde is fourth at 20 seconds.
Ángel Madrazo (Burgos-BH) retained his king of the mountains jersey, Quintana is in the points jersey and López leads the best young rider competition.
On a relatively short stage that was packed with climbing, Tao Geoghegan Hart (Team Ineos) attacked the Coll d'Ordino, taking about 30 riders along with him and creating the breakaway of the day.
The riders in the large breakaway included: Paddy Bevin (CCC Team), Antonio Pedrero, Marc Soler (Movistar Team), Pierre Latour, Geoffrey Bouchard (AG2R La Mondiale), Jakob Fuglsang, Gorka Izagirre (Astana), Hermann Pernsteiner (Bahrain-Merida), Felix Großschartner (Bora-Hansgrohe), Lawson Craddock, Sergio Higuita (EF Education First), Kilian Frankiny, Romain Seigle (Groupama-FDJ), Thomas De Gendt, Carl Frederik Hagen (Lotto Soudal), Mikel Nieve (Mitchelton-Scott), Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier, Ben O’Connor (Dimension Data), Wout Poels, David de la Cruz, Tao Geoghegan Hart, Sebastian Henao (Team Ineos), Robert Gesink, Sepp Kuss, Neilson Powless (Jumbo-Visma), Matteo Fabbro, Ruben Guerreiro (Katusha Alpecin), Wilco Kelderman, Robert Power, Martijn Tusveld (Team Sunweb), Nikias Eg (Trek-Segafredo), Jesús Herrada, Darwin Atapuma (Cofidis), Mikel Bizkarra and Sergio Samitier (Euskadi-Murias).
The breakaway never got more than four minutes on the peloton, which was led by Movistar and Astana.
Bouchard attacked the splintering breakaway on the Gallina, and went ahead alone with a 40 second advantage over his chasers. Meanwhile, back in the reduced peloton, Lopez attacked with 20 kilometres to go and eventually shook off all GC contenders. Quintana, Valverde, Pedrero, Pogacar and Roglic formed a chase group behind Lopez.
At the front of the race, O'Connor and Geoghegan Hart bridged across to Bouchard. The heavens opened up on the riders, creating an extra hazard along with the gravel section of road, where Lopez crashed, but caught back up to the leaders by the time they hit the bottom of Cortals d’Encamp.
Soler took over the lead of the race, but was told by Movistar to wait for Quintana, who was 30 seconds behind and just put in an attack. Pogacar attacked both of them and was unstoppable to the finish line.
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