Stage 11

The road

At the start

Roglič in red, a Basque transition

Roglič blitzed Pau to win the time trial and take the lead, and the damage behind him was severe: Quintana lost 3:06 and slid to fourth, López two minutes. The Slovenian leads Valverde by 1:52 and López by 2:11. Today is a harmless-looking 179 kilometres of Basque country on both sides of the border — the Osquich, the Ispéguy on the frontier itself, the Otxondo — to Urdax-Dantxarinea.

How it was won

1. 137 km to go

   The break turns on itself

   Over the Col de Otxondo the fourteen-man escape starts racing against itself, splitting and regrouping on the descent as the GC men enjoy a quiet day behind.

2. 225 km to go

   Iturria's audacious jump

   With 25km to go Mikel Iturria rips out of the front of the regrouped break; the others dismiss it as harmless and let the wildcard rider carve out more than fifty seconds.

3. 3At the line

   Iturria holds on in Urdax

   The chase claws to within touching distance at 1.5km but fails to finish the job; Iturria slips away again and crosses the line shaking his head — a maiden pro win, and a third wildcard victory of this Vuelta.

The result