Stage 18

The road

At the start

Contador in red after Fuente Dé

Alberto Contador attacked fifty kilometres from the top of a climb nobody thought was dangerous and took the Vuelta off Joaquim Rodríguez in a single afternoon. He leads Valverde by 1:52 and Rodríguez by 2:28; Froome is nine minutes forty down. Today is one of the sprinters' last chances — a hundred and eighty-six kilometres across the Castilian plains to Valladolid, where the wind is the only real danger.

How it was won

1. 133 km to go

   A crash on the plains

   The five-man break is down to a minute and a half with thirty-three kilometres left when the bunch comes down in the middle of the road. Nairo Quintana shakes off a hand injury; Linus Gerdemann does not get up and leaves the race.

2. 2At the line

   Bennati, and a dedication

   Daniele Bennati lets Davis and Swift take the front with three hundred metres left and comes through in the last few of them to win by less than half a wheel. It is his first win in a year, and he gives it to Wouter Weylandt, the last man to win a Vuelta stage in Valladolid.

The result