Caminito del Rey was the first of a long list of the new climbs that will highlight this Vuelta a España. A stage with lots of contenders for stage victory and where GC favorites were expected to already launch the battle for the red jersey.
After a quick and nervous start, six riders broke away from the peloton at km 20 : Matteo Montaguti (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Walter Pedraza (Team Colombia), Nelson Oliveira (Lampre-Merida), Bert Jan Lindeman (LottoNL-Jumbo), Davide Villella (Cannondale-Garmin) and José Gonçalves (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA). They quickly got a 3 minutes lead but the peloton, led by Movistar, was not in the mood to let them go further away. Matteo Pelucchi withdrew at km 50 (IAM Cycling) after suffering a crash earlier in the stage. That made him the first rider to leave the 70th Vuelta.
Halfway through the stage, Movistar received help from Katusha in order to reduce the gap to 2 minutes. The race was smoothly riding to its finish when a massive crash occurred at km 129. Vincenzo Nibali managed to get back in the first group with illegal assistance from his team car. He was later disqualified by the commissaires panel. José Gonçalves was the last member of the breakaway to surrender with only 10 km to go.
Cyril Gautier (Europcar) opened fire on Caminito del Rey. Nairo Quintana (Movistar) then went with his own attack, followed by Louis Mentjes (MTN-Qhubeka), Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) and Nicolas Roche (Team Sky) at first. Esteban Chaves (Orica-Greenedge) then joined them and proved to be in a great shape grabbing both the stage win and the red jersey.
