Stage 1

The road

At the start

Gran Partida on the Monaco circuit

The 81st Vuelta starts abroad again, in Monaco: 9.4 kilometres from the Monte Carlo casino, over the Fairmont hairpin and through the Louis II tunnel to the Grand Prix line on Boulevard Albert 1er. Thirteen corners may deny the specialists — Tarling, Vine, Küng. Tadej Pogačar rides these streets every day and wants the one Grand Tour he has never won; four-time winner Roglič goes last down the ramp.

How it was won

1. 15 km to go

   Pogačar on his own streets

   Thirteen corners, three tunnels and a set of short, brutal ramps around the Principality, and the most technical of them run past Pogačar's own front door. He takes them at the speed of a man who rides them to the shops, and the fraction of a second he finds there is the fraction this stage will hang on.

2. 2At the line

   Nine hundredths for red

   Tarling's 11:01 is the first serious mark, then Hayter takes the hot seat with 10:57 and Van Aert lands nine seconds adrift of it. Pogačar comes through with the same 10:57 on the board — nine hundredths of a second quicker — and the opening red jersey of the 81st Vuelta is his by a margin nobody in Monaco can see.

The result