Stage 1
Castroviejo first across, again
- Saturday 23 August 2014
- 12.9 km
- 47 m climbed
- Won by Jonathan Castroviejo
The road
At the start
Froome and Contador start again
The Vuelta opens with a 12.9-kilometre team time trial through Jerez, and it has the field of a Tour de France. Chris Froome and Alberto Contador are both here to redo a July that ended for each of them in a hospital. Nairo Quintana comes back after winning the Giro, and Chris Horner defends the title he took at forty-one. Nobody holds a second over anybody, and it is thirty degrees in the sherry town.
How it was won
- 6 km to go
Thirty degrees in Jerez
A technical, sun-baked course through the sherry town, and Movistar are the smoothest thing on it — the same nine-man rhythm that won the Pamplona team time trial two years ago.
- At the line
Castroviejo first across, again
Movistar take the curtain-raiser with Jonathan Castroviejo sent over the line first and into red, exactly as in 2012. Cannondale are six seconds back, Orica a few hundredths behind them — and Contador's Tinkoff-Saxo concede 19 seconds, Sky 27, before a single climb has been raced.
The result
| Rank | Rider | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jonathan Castroviejo | Movistar Team | 14:13 |
| 2 | Alejandro Valverde | Movistar Team | +0:00 |
| 3 | Andrey Amador | Movistar Team | +0:00 |
The route on real terrain, every moment pinned to the kilometre it happened on — and the GPX to ride it yourself.