Slovenian duo Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic annihilate the Brutal Los Machucos Beast
Young rider Tadej Pogacar wins his second stage as Primoz Roglic distances his other rivals
Tadej Pogacar is the youngest rider ever to win two mountain stages in a Grand Tour. Pogacar will wear the White Jersey tomorrow as he surpasses Lopez in the youth classification.
20 year old Pogacar moves onto the podium, with Valverde trailing Roglic by 2'25" in the GC. Pogacar third at 3'01". Then Lopez at 3'18" and Quintana at 3'33".
The pair attacked their rivals in the final two kilomtres, overhauled leader Pierre LaTour in the final kilometre, to cross the line for a Slovenian one-two.
Around 30 riders formed the breakaway and built up a lead of over 6 minutes, but it shrank as the climbs and new attacks took place in the breakaway, until Euskadi-Murias' Hector Saez soloed away.
In the peloton, Astana increased pace on the penultimate climb of the day and forced a selection of all the favourites. On the last climb of the stage, Frenchman Armirail (Groupama-FDJ) attacked with six kilometres and past the Spaniard.
Meanwhile, Astana started the same climb at full gas trying to cause damage in favour of Miguel Ángel López. With around five kilometres to go, Nairo Quintana (Movistar) attacked and created a gap, at the front Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale) caught Armirail and soloed ahead with aorund 3 kms to go.
Shortly after, Quintana was caught by the rest of the favourites and Red Jersey wearer Primoz Roglic attacked taking fellow countryman Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) with him, dropping the Colombian, Miguel Ángel Lópezand Alejandro Valverde (Movistar).
With 1.5 kilometres from the finish line, Roglic and Pogacar passed Latour while Valverde and Quintana tried to control the damage with López losing more time. Pogacar crossed the finish line, taking his second stage win in the race, with Roglic second, taking some bonus seconds and more time out of his rivals. Valverde and Quintana arrived to 27 seconds later and López one minute and one second behind.
Valverde crossed the finish line in the fourth position and 27 seconds behind the duo of Slovenians and remains in the second place of the General Classification. "For now, Roglic is showing to be the rider that is more in shape and the strongest one," said the World Champion at the finish line. "Because of the way that the group was moving, I could see that at any moment Roglic was going to accelerate to cause a break and that is what he did. In the end, and just after the Slovenians went away, Nairo and I tried to keep going at our rhythm and to the maximum, trying to lose as little time as possible. What can we do now? We will see. Today we lost some time but maybe one day we can make Roglic lose time, or maybe not. We will keep going step by step. On Sunday and Monday, we will have two key stages in Asturias."
VIDEO: 2019 La Vuelta Stage 13 Highlights
2019 La Vuelta Stage 13 Top 10
1 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates 4:28:26
2 Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma 0:00:00
3 Pierre Latour (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:27
4 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team
5 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team
6 Rafal Majka (Pol) Bora-Hansgrohe
7 Miguel Angel Lopez (Col) Astana Pro Team 0:01:01
8 Gianluca Brambilla (Ita) Trek-Segafredo 0:01:08
9 Marc Soler (Spa) Movistar Team
10 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Team Sunweb
2019 La Vuelta General Classification after stage 13
1 Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma 49:20:28
2 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Movistar Team 0:02:25
3 Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates 0:03:01
4 Miguel Angel Lopez (Col) Astana Pro Team 0:03:18
5 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team 0:03:33
6 Rafal Majka (Pol) Bora-Hansgrohe 0:06:15
7 Nicolas Edet (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits 0:07:18
8 Carl Fredrik Hagen (Nor) Lotto Soudal 0:07:33
9 Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Team Sunweb 0:07:39
10 Dylan Teuns (Bel) Bahrain-Merida 0:09:58