Joaquim Rodríguez (Katusha), race leader
Race so far: The Spaniard has ridden a great race so far and has come into his own over the past three stages. It looked like Fabio Aru was taking command of the GC with his displays on the summit finishes on stages 7 and 11, but Rodríguez has turned things around on the three mountain stages that preceded the second rest day. He stole a second on stage 14 and then asserted himself the following day with a stage win thanks to an attack on the steep closing kilometre of the final climb. That gave him 12 seconds and a bonus of 10 over Aru, to which he added a further two seconds on the hors-catégorie summit finish on stage 16 to take the race lead.
What could happen? It could be heartbreak once again for Rodríguez. The race lead at the 2012 Giro d’Italia was cruelly snatched away from him on the final-day time trial by Ryder Hesjedal, and over several years he has made a name for himself as something of a nearly man.
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Rodríguez is far from the strongest time triallist and the history books make it hard to predict how he’ll fare in Burgos. In the 2013 Tour de France he lost 1:45 on Dumoulin on the 33km time trial to Mont Saint Michel, but the Dutchman was just 22 at the time. They clashed most recently at the Vuelta al País Vasco, where Dumoulin won the final day time trial and Rodríguez snatched the overall win with second. Over the 18km course he lost just four seconds to Dumoulin, though it was a fairly hilly course.
There is a good chance that Dumoulin will overhaul him on Wednesday, and if so he will have to get inventive over the final stages, which don't really lend themselves to big time gaps. There is a tricky punchy finish on stage 19, and some dangerous climbs on stage 20, but that's if he just has Dumoulin to dispose of; going faster than Aru in Burgos is a must if this Vuelta is not to be another near-miss.
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