Stage 1

The road

At the start

A Vuelta that starts on a mussel raft

The Vuelta opens in the Galician rías with twenty-seven and a half kilometres of team time trial — far longer than its usual opener, technical for the first nine kilometres and wind-blasted after that, launched off a floating batea. Vincenzo Nibali arrives having already won the Giro d'Italia this year and trying to do what nobody has done since 2008. Nobody has lost anything yet.

How it was won

1. 18 km to go

   Astana measure it out

   Last team to start, and therefore the only one riding to known times. Through the technical opening nine kilometres they are four seconds behind Omega Pharma-QuickStep; over the flatter middle they take eight back and go twelve up. Katusha, meanwhile, are losing riders.

2. 2At the line

   Brajkovič in red, Nibali in profit

   They keep it steady to the line rather than risk shedding anyone, and it is enough: Janez Brajkovič takes the leader's jersey seven years after he last held it, and Vincenzo Nibali, second across the line, has already put twenty-nine seconds into Valverde and fifty-eight into Rodríguez.

The result