Stage 8

The road

At the start

Into Andorra, and a new mountain

Degenkolb has three stages and nothing at the top of the race has moved: Rodríguez, Froome at ten seconds, Contador at thirty-six. Today crosses into Andorra for the second big summit finish, and the Collada de la Gallina has never been used by the Vuelta before — not a long climb, but eighteen per cent in places on switchbacks that keep coming.

How it was won

1. 117 km to go

   Moinard lifts it on the Comella

   The break is down to four and 2:34 as the last Andorran climb before the finish takes the sting out of it. Moinard attacks over the top and is caught on the descent; behind them the field is closing steadily.

2. 212 km to go

   Onto a climb nobody has raced

   The Collada de la Gallina is new to the Vuelta and it is not long, it is simply cruel: switchback after switchback with pitches of eighteen per cent. The four leaders start it with two and a half minutes; by the time Moinard cracks it is down to 1:24.

3. 33 km to go

   Valverde jumps, Froome and Contador go over him

   Three kilometres out Valverde is first to move, and the other three are on him inside seconds. Then Froome and Contador attack together and it is Valverde and Rodríguez who have to scramble; the pair catch Meyer on a steep ramp just past the two-kilometre banner.

4. 42 km to go

   Six men, and Froome doing the work

   Meyer, Moreno, Rodríguez, Valverde, Froome and Contador grind up the Gallina together with the Briton on the front for most of it. Meyer goes, then Moreno, and Rodríguez leads the four survivors under the flamme rouge.

5. 51 km to go

   Froome's last flourish

   He attacks out of a curve inside the last kilometre and it lasts a few hundred metres. The other three come back to him easily, and Contador jumps through a corridor of Spanish flags and opens a lead nobody is going to give Froome any help closing.

6. 6At the line

   Two Spaniards come past in sight of the line

   For two hundred metres it is Contador's stage. Then Valverde and Rodríguez, who have spent the whole climb sitting on Froome, come round him within sight of the line — Valverde first, Rodríguez second, Contador third and Froome fifteen seconds adrift and out of the podium picture.

The result