*Pellizzari pulls away to win
*Vingegaard remains ahead of Almeida
*No protest disruptions
Italy's Giulio Pellizzari powered away from the top general classification riders in the final kilometres on the climb to the finish to win stage 17 of the Vuelta a Espana on Wednesday, with Jonas Vingegaard increasing his overall lead by two seconds.
Red Bull-BORA Hansgrohe rider Pellizzari attacked with 3.5km left of the 143.2km ride from O Barco de Valdeorras to the summit finish at Alto de El Morredero and came in 16 seconds ahead of Britain's Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) with Australian Jai Hindley in third.
Vingegaard was next over the line, two seconds ahead of his closest general classification rival Joao Almeida, and the Dane holds a 50-second lead, with Pidcock almost two and a half minutes down on the red jersey in third.
Pellizzari, fifth overall in his first Vuelta and wearing the white jersey for best young rider, found himself alongside the top four in the GC — Vingegaard, Almeida, Pidcock and Hindley — along with American Matthew Riccitello (Israel-Premier Tech).
A battle between the top two may have been expected, but it was 21-year-old Pellizzari who made the decisive attack, and while Riccitello tried a couple of times to drag the others up to the leader, the Italian looked comfortable in winning his first Grand Tour stage.
"In the end, it's my fault for not getting on Pellizzari right away," a frustrated Riccitello said.
"But I really thought these other guys would want the stage win. Pretty disappointing that they didn't want to help, I don't think they had much to lose but that's bike racing." An early 12-man breakaway was eventually reeled in before the riders reached the bottom of the final climb, and the race began in earnest as the main GC riders started to pull away. Almeida looked to be struggling, dropped at one stage, but the Portuguese rider made his way back to stay in touch with Vingegaard, as these two look set to battle it out for the Vuelta win.
Pidcock, looking to hold on to third overall, made a sprint for the finish to take a couple of bonus seconds from Hindley, his main rival for the podium.
"I think that's the sacrifice, I guess, when riding for the podium," Pidcock said.
"I sacrificed the stage that could have been really nice. But, we're racing for the podium, that's the main goal so we have to make decisions." — Reuters
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