Australian Jay Vine has been thwarted in a bold bid for a hat-trick of victories at this year's Vuelta a España, but his consolation after finally running out of steam was to increase his lead at the top of the King of the Mountains (KoM) standings.
On Sunday's hilly 15th stage between Vegadeo and Monforte de Lemos, Vine, in the mountains classification leader's blue polka dot jersey, led for nearly 100 kilometres after going on the attack with his fellow breakaway rider Louis Vervaeke.
After hoovering more big KoM points atop the Alto de Garganta and Alto de Barbeitos Col, the daring pair went on to open up a 3-minute lead at one point, with Vine even contemplating the outlandish prospect of a third win after his victories on the sixth and 10th stages.
But they finally got reeled in 7km from home by another group of seven, headed by former world champion Mads Pedersen, who went on to race away comfortably to victory in the sprint finale, increasing his lead in the points classification leader's green jersey.
It was a measure of Vine's tremendous effort that he was still prepared to have a go and attack once more, even in the final kilometre, but eventually he had to settle for eighth place.
His reward for another superb day's work with the all-conquering UAE Team Emirates-XRG outfit, though, was to have increased his King of the Mountains lead from seven points to 22 ahead of overall race leader Jonas Vingegaard.
"That was a long hard day," 29 year-old Vine said.
"After I gained the second loads of points, I decided to push on with Louis. If we'd had one more guy that came to us, maybe we could have cooperated, shared the load a bit more and stayed away."
Vingegaard had a quiet day, not attempting to chase down the leaders, as there was no change to the general classification, with Vine's teammate João Almeida still 48 seconds behind.
British double Olympic mountain bike champion Tom Pidcock is 2:38 in third, with Australian Jai Hindley looming ominously in fourth, still only 32 seconds off a podium place.
A protester carrying a Palestine flag had earlier caused a crash when he ran towards the road, causing Javi Romo and Edward Planckeart to slide off. Movistar Team's Romo had part of his shorts ripped off, but both riders were able to rejoin the race.
It was the latest in a series of disruptions by pro-Palestine protesters during the three-week grand tour.
AAP/ABC
