Stage 21

The road

At the start

Ten laps of Madrid

Nobody took a second off Juan José Cobo in Vitoria, so he arrives in Madrid thirteen ahead of Chris Froome and 1:39 ahead of Bradley Wiggins, with 97 processional kilometres to ride. The stage starts at the Jarama motor circuit, and once the champagne is done it becomes ten fast laps of the Castellana and the Gran Vía to the Plaza de Cibeles, where the sprinters take the last word.

How it was won

1. 111 km to go

   Horrach, the last man out front

   Three riders get a leash of about fifty seconds on the run into Madrid, and with eleven kilometres left the local rider Joan Horrach is the only one still using it.

2. 2At the line

   Madrid

   Petacchi and Bennati go left and drag-race each other, and Peter Sagan comes up the middle of the road out of nowhere for his third stage of the race. He is 21 and this is his first Grand Tour. Behind him a Vuelta ends that will be rewritten eight years later.

The result