The challenges of the day once again led to an intense battle between the 179 riders still in the race. A group of 14 riders covered 50,9km in the first hour of racing to get away from the bunch: Bob Jungels (Quick-Step Floors), Alessandro De Marchi (BMC), Antonio Pedrero (Movistar), Lennard Hofstede (Sunweb), Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale), Simon Clarke (Cannondale-Drapac), Antwan Tolhoek (LottoNL-Jumbo), Matej Mohoric (UAE Team Emirates), Sander Armée (Lotto Soudal), Giovanni Visconti (Bahrain-Merida), Igor Anton (Dimension Data), David Arroyo (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Conor Dunne (Aqua Blue Sport), Aldemar Reyes (Manzana Postobon).
Chris Froome had announced he was aiming for the stage victory at Calar Alto and his Sky teammates drove the peloton to control the gap under 5 minutes. Orica-Scott upped the tempo for Esteban Chaves with 55km to go and quickly brought the gap down to 1'30” as the front group tackled the alto de Velefique, 43.5km away from the finish line. Simon Yates (Orica-Scott) accelerated in the climb. At the top, he was with Bardet, Atapuma, Armée and Visconti, enjoying a 1'30” lead over the bunch.
In the last climb, Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) were the first to go on the move, 11km away from the summit. Esteban Chaves (Orica-Scott) quickly got dropped while the hard pace brought the strongest GC favorites back to Atapuma and Bardet with 7km to go.
Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) attacked in the last kilometre to solo away to victory. Chris Froome led the chase and only Vincenzo Nibali and Wilco Kelderman were able to follow him. Alberto Contador dropped 17”. Esteban Chaves lost two minutes and dropped down to 3rd place on GC. The BMC duo Nicolas Roche-Tejay Van Garderen is out of the top 10 after dropping early in the last climb.
