Stage 17

The road

At the start

Llomena twice, then Covadonga

The first of two queen stages, and Asturias has set a trap in front of the famous climb: the Collado Llomena, 7.6 kilometres at 9.3 per cent, ridden twice, before the road turns up to the Lagos de Covadonga. Eiking still leads by 54 seconds from Guillaume Martin and 1:36 from Roglič. Bernal, seventh at 4:21, is running out of mountains.

How it was won

1. 198 km to go

   First time up the Llomena

   After an opening hour in which a reduced peloton covers almost 50km and nothing can escape, a move finally forces clear. Storer leads over the top, Landa attacks from the bunch — and it is already obvious this stage belongs to the men chasing the overall.

2. 261 km to go

   Bernal attacks with 61km left

   Second time up the same climb, five kilometres from the summit, the Giro champion launches a seated acceleration with sixty-one kilometres still to race — an ambitious, almost reckless bid to turn the Vuelta over. Roglič does not hesitate for an instant. Kuss tries to follow and cannot live with it.

3. 357 km to go

   Over the top, and carnage behind

   Sivakov's earlier work has already distanced the red jersey. Now Eiking crashes chasing back on a descent made treacherous by constant rain, and Vlasov goes down too. Roglič and Bernal start swapping turns and their lead stretches to two minutes.

4. 423 km to go

   The foot of the Lagos

   Bahrain have clawed the gap back to 1:20 by the time the two leaders reach Cangas de Onís and turn onto the most famous climb in Spain.

5. 56 km to go

   Roglič drops him

   Impassive, metronomic, the Slovenian simply rides away from the man who invented this whole move, and within moments has a minute. Bernal has spent sixty kilometres making a race and gets nothing at all for it.

6. 6At the line

   Lagos de Covadonga

   Roglič punches the air alone in the mist. Kuss leads the chasers in at 1:36; Eiking loses nine minutes and the red jersey returns to the man who has looked like keeping it all along.

The result