Stage 18

The road

At the start

One last chance for the sprinters

Mas de la Costa did nothing at all to the top four — Quintana ahead of Froome by 3:37, Chaves by 3:57, Contador by 4:02 — though it cost Simon Yates a minute. Today is 200 kilometres that are never flat and mostly downhill after the Alto del Pelegrín, the last real chance for whichever sprinters have survived three weeks of Spanish walls. Tejay van Garderen abandoned yesterday.

How it was won

1. 147 km to go

   The stage tips back to the sprinters

   Etixx-QuickStep move up en masse and other teams sacrifice riders; in the hot Spanish sun the gap melts to 3:30 with 47km left and the five escapees are doomed.

2. 211 km to go

   Caught, and one more try

   The break is swallowed with eleven kilometres left and Jan Bakelants immediately counters alone into a run-in cluttered with late roundabouts, where no team can impose a lead-out.

3. 3At the line

   Cort Nielsen out of a scrum

   The sprint spreads right across the road in Gandía and Magnus Cort Nielsen has the most speed, sitting down on the tarmac afterwards barely believing he has won a Grand Tour stage on his debut.

The result