Stage 16

The road

At the start

Covadonga, for the twenty-third time

Roglič took another eighteen seconds at Cuitu Negru and sits 1:03 behind Ben O'Connor, who has been written off at Sierra Nevada, at Ancares and at Cuitu Negru and is still in red. After the rest day the race climbs Lagos de Covadonga for the twenty-third time: 12.5 kilometres at 6.9%, maximums of sixteen per cent, in the rain. In five of the last six editions to use it, the leader at the summit won the Vuelta.

How it was won

1. 1140 km to go

   A 17-man break escapes

   After a fast 35km an interesting 17-rider move gets clear, Van Aert and Vine among them, chasing both the stage and the mountains jersey.

2. 250 km to go

   Van Aert crashes out

   On a fast, damp bend off the Collada Llomena, disaster: Van Aert slams into the rocky hillside, wrecks his knee and, heartbreakingly, is out of the Vuelta.

3. 37 km to go

   Soler surges clear on the Lagos

   On the steepest part of the misty, rain-soaked Lagos de Covadonga, Marc Soler powers away from Zana and Poole, finally converting his relentless aggression into a lead.

4. 45 km to go

   Landa lights the GC group

   Five kilometres out Landa attacks in a show of pure Landismo; Roglič, Mas, Carapaz and Gaudu go with him and O'Connor is spat out the back.

5. 5At the line

   Soler wins, O'Connor clings to red

   Soler soloes to an emotional win while O'Connor, refusing to give up, fights back on the flat to save the red jersey by a mere five seconds.

The result