Stage 8

The road

At the start

A short, savage wall at Cazorla

Wout van Aert won out of a split in Córdoba and Red Bull clawed six seconds back: Ben O'Connor's lead over Primož Roglič is 4:45. Today looks like a breakaway day through Jaén, but it ends on the Sierra de Cazorla, and the numbers lie — category 3, 4.8 kilometres at 7.1%, with a twenty-per-cent ramp at its foot and a last 1.5 kilometres that never drops under ten. It is exactly the finish Roglič hunts.

How it was won

1. 159 km to go

   An eight-man break forms

   After a frantic, split-strewn first hour an eight-rider move finally settles clear as the GC teams call a brief truce before the punchy finale.

2. 25 km to go

   Roglič lights up the wall

   On the vicious double-digit ramps of the Sierra de Cazorla, Roglič launches a volley of attacks; his third dig shatters the group and O'Connor, in real trouble, comes apart.

3. 31 km to go

   Only Mas can follow

   Inside the last kilometre only Enric Mas has held the wheel. Mikel Landa is already fourteen seconds adrift, and somewhere down the mountain the red jersey is losing his grip on the race.

4. 4At the line

   Roglič's vicious finish

   Roglič surges clear in the last 100 metres for a second stage win, carving 56 seconds out of O'Connor's lead on a climb barely 5km long.

The result