172 riders participated in the early battle for the breakaway as George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo), Serge Pauwels (Dimension Data), Jorge Arcas (Movistar) and Lennard Hofstede (Team Sunweb) had to withdraw due to illnesses. It took 50km of hard racing for 14 riders to open a gap with the peloton: Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo), Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar), Pawel Poljanski, Andreas Schillinger (Bora-Hansgrohe), Julien Duval (AG2R-La Mondiale), Brendan Canty (Cannondale-Drapac), Michael Morkov (Katusha-Alpecin), Stef Clement (LottoNL-Jumbo), Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates), Tomasz Marczynski (Lotto Soudal), Omar Fraile (Dimension Data), Anthony Perez (Cofidis), David Arroyo (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Peter Koning (Aqua Blue Sport).
The attackers quickly opened a 5 minutes gap and their lead steadily increased, up to 9 minutes at the bottom of the last climb of the day. Canty launched the first moves but Marczynski proved himself to be the strongest in the climb. He summited with a lead of 1 minutes over Rojas, Canty, Clement, Fraile and Poljanski and flew to victory in the 20km run down to Antequera.
In the peloton, Nicolas Roche (BMC) and Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) attacked 5.5km away from the summit. The Spanish climber, triple winner of La Vuelta, set a hard pace the Irish rider couldn't match. He enjoyed a 30” lead at the summit, with 17.5km to go. Chris Froome (Team Sky) then crashed twice in the downhill. With the help of Mikel Nieve and Wouter Poels, he limited his losses to 20 seconds over Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) and 42 over Alberto Contador.
