Stage 16

The road

How it was won

1. 1143 km to go

   A truce, of sorts

   Seven categorised climbs, the ninth summit finish of the race, and slopes touching thirty per cent waiting at the end of it. Ten escapees, none of them a danger overall, are simply waved away.

2. 266 km to go

   Twenty-one minutes, and a stand-off

   Fraile gleefully mops up mountains points out front while Katusha and Astana argue over who ought to be chasing. Katusha blink first.

3. 335 km to go

   Tinkoff turn it on for Majka

   Hostilities finally start in earnest on the Cordal, where Tinkoff-Saxo set a pace that begins to strip the red jersey group down.

4. 418 km to go

   Astana answer on the Cobertoria

   Diego Rosa takes over and repeats the dose. By the top there are around fifteen riders left with any claim on this Vuelta.

5. 53 km to go

   Thirty per cent

   The last three kilometres of the Ermita de Alba are the steepest road in the race, touching thirty per cent, and everything happens at walking pace. Schleck inches clear of Torres 1,500 metres from the top. Valverde and Chaves are gone with two kilometres left. Dumoulin holds on far longer than anyone wants him to — and at 800 metres Rodríguez senses it and bounds clear.

6. 6At the line

   One second, and a Dutchman still smiling

   Fränk Schleck wins his first race in more than four years. Aru battles back to within touching distance and still loses two seconds to Rodríguez — and the red jersey by one. Behind them Dumoulin comes in 16th, less than half a minute down, with a 38-kilometre time trial to come.

The result