AG2R's Alexis Gougeard took victory on stage nineteen of the Vuelta a España.
A 185.8 kilometres stage from Medina del Campo to Ávila with 161 starters, saw twenty four riders in Christian Knees (Sky), Alexis Gougeard (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Amael Moinard (BMC), David Arroyo, Ricardo Vilela (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Cyril Lemoine (Cofidis), Fabio Duarte, Leonardo Duque, Juan Pablo Valencia (Team Colombia), Maxime Bouet (Etixx-Quick Step), Mickael Delage (FDJ), Jerome Coppel (IAM Cycling) Nelson Oliveira (Lampre-Merida), Maxime Monfort, Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto-Soudal), Andrei Amador, Fran Ventoso (Movistar), Natnael Berhane (MTN-Qhubeka), Ben King (Cannondale-Garmin), Jimmy Engoulvent (Europcar), Tiago Machado, Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), Pavel Brutt (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Markel Irizar (Trek) get away after five kilometres.
They built up a lead of twelve minutes and then 13.30 with 127kms to go before there was a crash in the peloton which affected race leader Tom Dumoulin and second placed Fabio Aru who both needed new bikes.
Maxime Bouet (Etixx-QuickStep) was first of the escapers over the Valdavia climb as the lead went out to nearly sixteen minutes with 79kms to go.
Thirty seven kilometres later and the break fractured with Tiago Machado (Katusha) making a break for it and getting thirty seconds clear before Alexis Gougeard (AG2R) and Leonardo Duque (Colombia) joined him.
Gougeard took the sprint at El Barraco and then having dropped first Duque and then Machado, the Frenchman took the The Alto de la Paramera climb and then the Paramera.climb with a lead of thirty seconds over Monfort, Moinard, Machado and Amador.
Ten seconds were knocked off the lead of Gougeard but it was not enough and on the cobbles leading up to the town of Avila, he was forty seconds ahead going under the flam rouge.
Alexis Gougeard continued and he rode to a victory in a time of 4:19:20 with Nelson Olivera in second after getting past the chasers on the cobbles, some forty seconds down, followed by Maxime Monfort, Amador, Machado, Moinard, Duarte, Arroyo, Christian Knees and Francisco Ventoso of Movistar.
Tom Dumoulin put in an attack on the cobbles up to Avila and was able to put three seconds into Fabio Aru to take a six second lead into the penultimate stage of the race.