Stage 21

The road

At the start

Eight laps of the Castellana

Vincenzo Nibali survived the Bola del Mundo by 41 seconds from Ezequiel Mosquera and will not lose that on the finishing circuits of the Paseo de la Castellana. What is still open is the sprint. Mark Cavendish has three stages and wears green, and this is the last stage anybody wins in this Vuelta — with forty-two of the riders who set off in Seville no longer here to contest it.

How it was won

1. 114 km to go

   Two laps left

   Liquigas lead the race onto the finishing circuits and then Garmin, Lampre and HTC take over. The five-man break that has provided the afternoon's entertainment is caught with fourteen kilometres and two laps to go.

2. 24 km to go

   One last throw

   With four kilometres left an Omega Pharma-Lotto rider tries the only attack anyone is going to make in Madrid, and is swept up almost immediately. The lead-out trains move to the front.

3. 3At the line

   Farrar takes Madrid, Nibali takes the Vuelta

   Tyler Farrar is perfectly placed out of the last corner and bursts through inside the final hundred metres; Cavendish cannot accelerate on the right-hand side and takes second, and the green jersey, and no fourth stage. Behind them Vincenzo Nibali rides in safely to become the fifth Italian ever to win the Vuelta a España.

The result