The whole of the 198-strong peloton started from Ourense centre at 13:45. Two riders took off from the flag: Italy's Cesare Benedetti (Bora Argon 18) and Frances' Laurent Pichon (FDJ). Bryan Nauleau (Direct Energie) caught up with them at kilometer 9.
The three worked well and held a maximum lead of 4:;25 at kilometer 43 as the pack were still undecided at what attitude to adopt. Finally, Peter Kennaugh's Team Sky led the chase, quickly aided by Giant-Alpecin and Trek-Segafredo, two teams with bunch sprint hopes with Niklas Arndt and Niccolo Bonifazio.
By the 3rd category Alto de Pontefria (Km 80), the lead of the escapees had gone down to 2:35 and Pichon was first at the top, snatching the only KOM points on offer for the day. The gap kept decreasing until 38 km from the finish, when Belgian champion Philippe Gilbert (BMC) surged to catch the leading trio. But the gap was then down to 25 seconds and the break looked doomed. Gilbert had to be content with snatching the three-seconds bonus at the intermediate sprint of Vigo, 19 kms from the line.
Then the teams with an interest in a bunch sprint - but also Team Sky - started organising and the four were caught with 15 km to go. Several attempts - the most notable one by Tiago Machado 13 km from the line - took place in the finale but the peloton, led by Peter Kennaugh's team-mates, kept a close watch.
The stage was set for a final sprint and Lotto-Soudal and Giant-Alpecin were the most active teams in the last 3 km. Spectacular crashes by Sergey Lagutin (Katusha) and Ryan Anderson (Direct Energie) did not hamper the final battle which saw Etixx-Quick Step emerge to set up a perfect sprint for Meersman. Wile he miss the stage podium, Kwiatkowski made the best of his finishing power to seize the Vuelta lead ahead of Movistar's Jose Joaquin Rojas and Alejandro Valverde.
