Stage 10

The road

At the start

Out of the rest day, into Albacete

The Aitana rearranged everything and then Mas won on top of it: he leads Roglič by 1:18 and Gall by 1:39, Onley is up to fourth, and Sepp Kuss has slipped to seventh. Buitrago rides in the mountains jersey. Groves and Torres both climbed off on the mountain, sixteen home already. After the rest day the race turns inland — 184 rolling kilometres across Albacete and a nine-kilometre climb to Socovos with twenty to run.

How it was won

1. 1136 km to go

   Seven, on a very short leash

   An uncategorised climb straight off the line gives the day its escape inside fifteen kilometres: Paleni, Gogl, Sütterlin, Weiss, Fernández and Cobo, with Dversnes counter-attacking across. Paleni takes maximum points on the Puerto del Peralejo. The peloton hands them two minutes and not a second more, and for a hundred kilometres after that nothing changes at all.

2. 221 km to go

   Socovos breaks it open

   Nine kilometres of climbing with twenty to go, and everything happens at once. Five of the seven leaders push on at the foot; Mads Pedersen is out the back early and out of the stage with it; Eddie Dunbar chips clear of the bunch with twenty-nine left; and near the summit even Carapaz has a dig, luring Mas and Kuss into answering it. Four men lead over the top by thirty seconds, and behind them Visma have Brennan covering moves rather than saving his legs.

3. 37 km to go

   Caught, and caught again

   Gogl and Dversnes are the last of the break to yield, and they yield with seven kilometres left — only for Dversnes to latch onto a counter and drag five more riders out of the peloton with him. It takes until four to go to close all but one of them, and Walter Calzoni's last throw survives until two, when Brennan buries himself in one enormous pull to end it.

4. 4At the line

   Tronchon, unsure he has won

   Brennan pulls off early and leaves Van Aert isolated, and into the final kilometre Fedorov and Azparren jump while the bunch hesitates. There are no lead-out trains left in Elche de la Sierra, only riders surfing wheels, and Bastien Tronchon goes far too early and is simply still going when the two escapees come back to him. He crosses without lifting his arms, because he cannot tell whether anybody is in front of him.

The result