Stage 9

The road

At the start

Antón in red by nothing at all

The Xorret del Catí has given Igor Antón the red jersey on exactly the same time as Joaquim Rodríguez, with Vincenzo Nibali two seconds behind them both. Today has barely a flat metre in its last two-thirds: seven classified climbs into Alcoy, none of them long enough to break the favourites apart. A day for the break, then — and for a mountains jersey Serafín Martínez has held all week.

How it was won

1. 1121 km to go

   Fifteen go, and the jersey lets them

   Egoi Martínez is in the move, which is Euskaltel's way of rubber-stamping it, and fourteen others go with him over the Coll de Rates. Seven categorised climbs will take the rest of them apart one at a time.

2. 256 km to go

   Rabuñal's stand

   Gonzalo Rabuñal has spent the day out-jumping Moncoutié at summits to defend his teammate's mountains jersey, and over the Tudons he keeps going: two minutes on the break, eight on the peloton, fifty-one kilometres from the line.

3. 313 km to go

   López jumps

   Rabuñal is finally caught and dropped, and thirteen kilometres out David López attacks with Moncoutié across to him. Kreuziger, Martínez and Caruso form their own chase, and Péraud — red jersey on the road all afternoon — is left ploughing a lone furrow behind them.

4. 45 km to go

   And goes again on the Revolcat

   The five come together near the top of the climb, Caruso telegraphs an attack and Moncoutié shuts it down. Then López goes on the descent with five kilometres left and has twenty seconds before the others work out whose job it is to chase.

5. 5At the line

   López grinds up the drag

   The chasers never agree and López grinds his way up the final rise into Alcoy to hold them off, Kreuziger second, Caruso third. Antón keeps the jersey; Péraud, who was leading the race on the road, comes in 55 seconds down and moves to fifth overall.

The result