Stage 15

The road

At the start

Covadonga, for the eighteenth time

Rodríguez beat Contador on the thirteen per cent ramps of the Ancares and took twelve seconds of bonus with it; he leads by twenty-two now, with Froome and Valverde level at 1:41. Jurgen Van den Broeck did not start yesterday. Today ends on the Lagos de Covadonga, the Vuelta's own mountain, hors catégorie and appearing for the eighteenth time.

How it was won

1. 1114 km to go

   Ten men, seven minutes

   Lastras, Mondory, Kashechkin, Seeldraeyers, De la Fuente, Piedra, Pérez, Reynes, Geschke and Lagutin go up the first climb of the day with more than seven minutes, and by the time the road tilts again they have doubled it.

2. 240 km to go

   Fifteen minutes, and two crashes

   The gap peaks at a quarter of an hour on the penultimate climb — six point eight kilometres at eight per cent — and only starts falling on the far side, where Teklehaimanot and Dekker both go down on the descent in separate incidents.

3. 311 km to go

   Piedra rides away from the break

   Kashechkin moves first on the Lagos de Covadonga and Lastras closes it. Then Antonio Piedra, of the tiny Caja Rural team, simply goes — no acceleration, no theatre, just a steady twenty seconds that becomes a minute.

4. 46 km to go

   Saxo detonate the favourites

   Navarro goes up the road for Contador, Quintana jumps to mark him, and Urán and Porte drive for Froome. Then Hernández passes Navarro, and everybody waits for the attack everybody knows is coming.

5. 54 km to go

   Froome cracks on Covadonga

   Four kilometres out Contador jumps and Rodríguez goes after him. Valverde cannot follow, and then can. Chris Froome cannot, and does not come back — the last time this Vuelta will see him in the front group.

6. 6At the line

   Piedra by two minutes; the podium settles

   He passes the first lake with enough time to zip up his jersey for the cameras and takes the biggest win of his life by 2:02. Nine minutes and twenty seconds later Valverde opens the sprint of the three favourites and beats Rodríguez and Contador — and behind them, the Vuelta podium has quietly become a Spanish one.

The result