With the climb up Collado Bermejo on sight, the battle for the breakaway reached unprecedented levels in the first part of stage 10. It took two hours at an average speed of 52.3km/h for a group of 18 riders to eventually manage to open a gap over a very nervous peloton.
Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo), Tim Declercq, Matteo Trentin (Quick-Step Floors), Alessandro De Marchi (BMC), Marc Soler, Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar), Nico Denz, Alexandre Geniez (AG2R-La Mondiale), Michael Morkov (Katusha-Alpecin), Bert-Jan Lindeman, Juanjo Lobato (LottoNL-Jumbo), Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana), Valerio Agnoli, Domen Novak (Bahrain-Merida), Arnaud Courteille (FDJ), Jacques Janse Van Rensburg (Dimension Data), Rafael Reis, Diego Rubio (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) quickly built a 5' lead. Team Sky then controlled the gap.
In the final 40km, Trentin, Rojas, Roson and Janse Van Rensburg enjoyed the climbs of the day to get rid of their breakaway companions and battle it out on the downhill to Alhama de Murcia. Trentin and Rojas dominated the descent and the Italian sprinter eventually snatched the win.
In the peloton, Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) accelerated in the descent but couldn't get rid of his rivals. A later move from Nicolas Roche (BMC) saw the Irish man gain 29” on the rest of the GC contenders. Still 3rd on GC, Roche is now 36” behind Chris Froome (Team Sky), like Esteban Chaves (Orica-Scott).
