Stage 17

The road

At the start

Forty-six flat kilometres

Joaquim Rodríguez took the jersey back at Cotobello and leads by 33 seconds from Nibali and 53 from Mosquera. None of that is safe. Today is 46 kilometres out and back along the Duero, flat, wide and straight, the only long time trial of this Vuelta: the specialists have waited three weeks for it, Cancellara and Menchov among them, and the men at the top have been dreading it just as long.

How it was won

1. 134 km to go

   Velits, from nowhere

   A flat, windswept loop around Peñafiel, and the fastest man on it is a 25-year-old Slovak who came to this Vuelta as a helper. Peter Velits goes out and rides 46 kilometres in 52:43.

2. 221 km to go

   Menchov and Cancellara go under

   Denis Menchov finishes twelve seconds slower, and the world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara thirty-seven. On the day the Vuelta expects a specialist to win, the specialists are all beaten.

3. 313 km to go

   Rodríguez blows

   The man who took the red jersey at Cotobello two days ago loses more than four minutes to Nibali on these roads. His Vuelta ends here, in fifth place overall, on a completely flat course.

4. 46 km to go

   Mosquera holds

   The one contender nobody expected to survive a time trial comes in only nineteen seconds slower than Nibali. It leaves him 39 seconds down overall — and makes him, not Rodríguez, the man the race leader now has to beat.

5. 5At the line

   Velits wins, Nibali takes red back

   Velits's ride is worth a stage and third place overall, 1:44 clear of Fränk Schleck. Nibali is back in the leader's jersey and the Vuelta has one mountain left to settle it.

The result