Stage 19

The road

At the start

Into the mountains at a minute thirty-seven

Jerez took thirty-three seconds off the red jersey and second place off Felix Gall: Roglič at 1:37 now, Gall at 3:01, two mountain days left to settle it. Stefan Küng does not start the morning after winning, and thirty-eight are gone. Today is the longest stage of the last week — 206 kilometres over four climbs and down to the Costa del Sol, then nineteen kilometres of Peñas Blancas straight back up off the beach.

How it was won

1. 1166 km to go

   Fifty-two an hour, and still no break

   The pattern of this Vuelta repeats one more time: forty kilometres of flat road ridden at better than fifty-two kilometres an hour, and nobody allowed to go. Kruijswijk, Leknessund and Sütterlin get forty-five seconds and think they have it; other teams fire riders across; and by the time four more reach the front the peloton is thirty seconds off the whole thing. Everything resets, and the race starts again.

2. 2115 km to go

   Eight over the Abejas, thirty seconds up

   With eighty kilometres gone Eddie Dunbar leads the move that finally sticks, dragging a group across to Leknessund until eight of them share half a minute. Then it swells to twenty, and a breakaway of twenty is a breakaway nobody is frightened of: over the top of the Puerto de las Abejas the peloton is less than thirty seconds behind it, and Netcompany Ineos are still pulling.

3. 394 km to go

   Mas alone on the Puerto del Viento

   Ineos finish the job on the second climb and only Dunbar survives it, crossing the Puerto del Viento by himself with the chase fifteen seconds down. The real damage is further back. The peloton comes apart on the exposed road, the red jersey is briefly out of the front of it, and for the first time since he took the race lead on stage eight Enric Mas looks around and finds no Movistar rider anywhere near him. It is repaired inside a few kilometres. It should not have needed repairing on a day like this.

4. 420 km to go

   Seven fifteen at the foot of the mountain

   Sixteen riders lead the race through the beach hotels of Estepona with six and a half minutes, and by the time the road tilts up out of the town it is seven fifteen. Whoever wins today is already in that group. Red Bull take the peloton onto the nineteen kilometres of Peñas Blancas hard enough to open doors at the back of it, hold that for half the climb and then fall away — and it is Movistar, the team that had nobody at all beside Mas four hours ago, who ride the rest of the mountain on the front.

5. 513 km to go

   Buitrago launched with thirteen to go

   Rudy Molard moves first on the lower slopes and does not last. Pau Miquel puts him away and then puts his own leader up the road: Santiago Buitrago, in the mountains jersey, with thirteen kilometres of climbing in front of him. Thomas Gloag goes with him, Dunbar comes across from behind, Urko Berrade makes it four, and what is left of the breakaway falls to pieces below them.

6. 6At the line

   Dunbar, alone for five hundred metres

   The four ride the mountain almost to its summit together, and it is Buitrago who cannot wait — he attacks two kilometres from the line and gets the gap he wants. He is still holding it inside the last kilometre. Then Eddie Dunbar comes up out of the group behind and goes past him as though the Colombian has stopped pedalling, and rides the last five hundred metres of Peñas Blancas on his own: fourteen seconds at the line, Gloag third, two Pinarello riders on the podium. In red, nothing moves at all.

The result