Vuelta a Espana Stage 19 Results

Gougeard Wins First Grand Tour Stage Victory, Dumoulin extends his lead in the Vuelta

Alexis Gougeard of AG2R La Mondiale pulled away from four chasers in the final 6 km (3.6 miles) of the stage to win his first Grand Tour stage over Nelson Oliveira (Lampre-Merida) by 40 seconds in Stage 19. Gougeard was the eighth different stage winner in this competitive Vuelta. Tom Dumoulin of Team Giant-Alpecin extended his lead by 3 seconds over Fabio Aru (Astana Pro Team) with a late attack on the final 2.4 km (1.5 mile) climb to the finish. There is one competitive Vuelta stage left for Aru to overtake Dumoulin before the ceremonial finish in Madrid on Sunday.

A 24 rider breakaway, including Gougeard, formed 5 km (3 miles) from the start of the 184 km (114 mile) stage from Medina del Campo to the walled medieval city of Avila in central Spain. There were no General Classification contenders in the breakaway, so the peloton did not actively chase down the breakaway, the gap grew to 16 minutes. Both Dumoulin and Aru crashed after 72 km (44 miles) were gone in the stage. Both were unhurt and rejoined the peloton.

Team Giant-Alpecin, Astana Pro Team, Tinkoff-Saxo and Movistar Team stayed in the front of the peloton to support their GC contenders. Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team) attacked the lead peloton group a few times to move up in the GC Standings. Tinkoff-Saxo and Astana Pro Team responded to Valverde each time. Dumoulin moved to the front of the group, with Daniel Moreno (Team Katusha) close behind opening up a small gap on Aru on the short cobblestoned finishing climb of the stage in Avila.

Stage 20 is the final test for Dumoulin before the Sunday finish in Madrid. Dumoulin has a six second lead over Aru, and the stage has four Category 1 climbs on the 181 km (112 mile) mountain stage. The four climbs are not extremely difficult, but Team Giant-Alpecin and Dumoulin will have to be ready to chase down breakaways and attacks from other GC contenders.

Stage 19 Results

1	Alexis Gougeard	Fra	AG2R La Mondiale	4:19:20
2	Nelson Oliveira	Por	Lampre-Merida	0:00:40
3	Maxime Monfort	Bel	Lotto Soudal	0:00:44
4	Andrey Amador	CRc	Movistar Team	0:00:44
5	Tiago Machado	Por	Team Katusha	0:00:44
6	Amaël Moinard	Fra	BMC Racing Team	0:00:44
7	Fabio Duarte	Col	Colombia	0:00:53
8	David Arroyo	Spa	Caja Rural-Seguros RGA	0:01:03
9	Christian Knees	Ger	Team Sky	0:01:17
10	Francisco Ventoso	Spa	Movistar Team	0:01:17

General Classification Standings

1	Tom Dumoulin	Ned	Team Giant-Alpecin	78:20:51
2	Fabio Aru	Ita	Astana Pro Team	0:00:06
3	Joaquim Rodriguez	Spa	Team Katusha	0:01:24
4	Rafal Majka	Pol	Tinkoff-Saxo	0:02:31
5	Nairo Quintana	Col	Movistar Team	0:03:02
6	Alejandro Valverde	Spa	Movistar Team	0:03:24
7	Esteban Chaves	Col	Orica GreenEdge	0:03:39
8	Daniel Moreno	Spa	Team Katusha	0:03:46
9	Mikel Nieve	Spa	Team Sky	0:04:19
10	Louis Meintjes	RSA	MTN - Qhubeka	0:07:00