Stage 16

The road

At the start

Cotobello, and 4,700 metres of climbing

Mosquera took eleven seconds out of the red jersey at Covadonga and is third at 39 seconds; Joaquim Rodríguez is still exactly four seconds off Vincenzo Nibali, where he has been since Peña Cabarga. Today is the hardest day on paper — 4,700 metres of climbing over the San Lorenzo and the Cobertoria before a first-category finish at the Alto de Cotobello, a new climb renamed this year for Chechu Rubiera.

How it was won

1. 1134 km to go

   Moncoutié takes his points and sits up

   The stage starts fast and nervous out of Gijón, Menchov of all people winning the first sprint from an attack. Cofidis chase it down for their climber, Moncoutié goes first over the Alto de Cabruñana, and then he lets the peloton have him back. The break of ten forms immediately afterwards.

2. 281 km to go

   Nieve is towed across San Lorenzo

   Luis León Sánchez leads over the first-category Puerto de San Lorenzo and the escape splits on it. Behind, Juan José Oroz drags his Euskaltel teammate Mikel Nieve up to the front group and then swings off — a small, perfect piece of team work.

3. 339 km to go

   Schleck's signal on the Cobertoria

   Saxo Bank have been on the front for an hour and Fränk Schleck tries to bridge to the leaders on the Alto de la Cobertoria. A chase group with the red jersey in it brings him back — but everybody has now seen what he intends to do on the last climb.

4. 48 km to go

   Twice, and gone

   Eight kilometres from Cotobello, jersey wide open and dancing on the pedals, Schleck attacks twice in a few hundred metres and rides clear. Tom Danielson gets across to him, and later Carlos Sastre, and neither can hold the wheel when he lifts it again.

5. 52 km to go

   Mosquera goes, and Nibali cannot

   Inside the last two kilometres Mosquera attacks and Rodríguez goes after him. The red jersey, sitting comfortably behind Kreuziger until now, is suddenly in real trouble and cannot follow either of them.

6. 6At the line

   Nieve solos, Rodríguez takes red

   Mikel Nieve holds off the whole race for a first Grand Tour stage win at Cotobello. Behind him Rodríguez takes the leader's jersey back off Nibali, and with a time trial and the Bola del Mundo still to come, nine riders are inside five minutes.

The result