Stage 18

The road

At the start

Monte Castrove, twice

A short Galician stage that climbs the same mountain twice: Monte Castrove at 24 kilometres out, then again a kilometre from the line, ten kilometres of sinuous road that only turns hard in its last third. Alberto Contador leads Alejandro Valverde by 1:36 and Chris Froome by 1:39, three seconds apart. Cancellara, Boonen and Robert Gesink have all gone home overnight.

How it was won

1. 124 km to go

   First time up Monte Castrove

   Two ascents of the same short, steep mountain close the stage, and the first one does the filtering. Tinkoff-Saxo and Sky drive it, Le Bon is caught, Luis León Sánchez takes the points at the top and sits up to wait for the field.

2. 220 km to go

   The last escapees are swept up

   Dupont and Losada carry a handful of seconds over the top and are gone inside a couple of kilometres. Sky take over the front of a much-reduced group, and Tinkoff-Saxo are perfectly happy to let them do the work.

3. 37 km to go

   Froome jumps for bonus seconds

   The Briton attacks before the last intermediate sprint at San Xoán de Poio, then discovers nobody is sure where the line actually is. He takes second and two seconds — a small, telling raid on Contador's lead.

4. 44 km to go

   Aru explodes the race, 3.8km out

   Le Mével has already been caught, Contador has probed twice and Coppel has ten seconds. Then Fabio Aru jumps out of Zaugg's slipstream and the stage detonates: he catches and passes Coppel as though the Frenchman were freewheeling.

5. 53 km to go

   Rodríguez lights the fuse

   Navarro has just gone when, with a shade under three kilometres left, Rodríguez attacks and takes Contador, Valverde and Froome clear with him. The whole podium of the Vuelta is now strung out on a wall of a climb.

6. 63 km to go

   Froome counters at 2.5km

   He goes hard, bridges to Aru and sets a pace the three Spaniards cannot live with. Fifteen seconds appear in a heartbeat — enough to lift him past Valverde into second overall — with the young Sardinian sitting patiently on his wheel.

7. 7At the line

   Aru comes round at the summit

   Froome wants the stage and the ten-second bonus that comes with it, but Aru kicks past him with real aggression to take the win. The three Spaniards arrive thirteen seconds later: Contador is still in red, and he has been outfoxed again.

The result