Stage 14

The road

At the start

Asturias, and Lagos de Somiedo

The Ancares settled nothing. Wiggins still leads, with Nibali up to second at four seconds and Froome third at seven, and Cobo eighth at 1:27. Today is the first of two Asturian days: the Puerto de la Ventana, then the San Lorenzo, then the long haul to La Farrapona at Lagos de Somiedo. Tomorrow is the Angliru, which shapes exactly how hard anybody dares ride this afternoon.

How it was won

1. 165 km to go

   Kroon's Vuelta ends

   On the descent of the Puerto de la Ventana, Vanmarcke and Karsten Kroon go off the road into the trees. Both are hauled back out; the Dutchman does not start again.

2. 240 km to go

   The bunch starts fracturing

   With forty kilometres left and 2:50 to the break, Losada drags Chavanel and others clear and is shut down. A kilometre later Intxausti and Bruseghin go and are not, and the day stops being controllable.

3. 334 km to go

   Taaramäe makes his move

   Rein Taaramäe attacks the front group with David de la Fuente for company and crests the San Lorenzo 2:21 ahead of Moreno, with the peloton another thirteen seconds back. It is the move that wins the stage and nobody notices yet.

4. 410 km to go

   Fifty-seven seconds

   At the ten-kilometre banner the two leaders have 57 seconds, and the peloton is not chasing them at all — it is watching Moreno, whose group it refuses to let past a minute.

5. 55 km to go

   Rodriguez and Nibali crack

   Txurruka lights it, Moreno counters with Cobo on his wheel, and up the steep top of Lagos de Somiedo the two men everyone came to watch simply stop being there. Rodriguez and Nibali are dropped from a group containing Wiggins, Froome, Van Den Broeck, Poels and Menchov.

6. 6At the line

   La Farrapona

   Taaramäe rides the last of it alone for the first Grand Tour win everybody has been predicting for him for years. He is 24, he has attacked on almost every stage of this race, and this is the one that stuck.

The result