Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) continued his startlingly rich vein of spring form by winning the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, beating Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) into second place. Valverde sealed his win with the second best time on Saturday's concluding time trial in Eibar, with LottoNl-Jumbo's Primoz Roglic claiming the TT victory.
"I always wanted to win this race. I have been riding it for many years, and I have always been very close," Valverde said. "This leaves a very, very special taste. It was a really hard time trial. It was tight with Ion [Izagirre] and Alberto, to be honest, it was an advantage to be last off. Knowing the splits of the men who went before was important."
The day began with five riders locked on the same time as Valverde at the head of the overall standings, while Contador loomed with intent just three seconds back. Despite the tight margins at the beginning of the stage, however, it was clear by the first checkpoint that the race would be a duel between Contador and Valverde.
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The 27km time trial began with the 6km ascent of the Elgeta, but Contador was the only one of the general classification contenders to use a regular road bike for the opening part of the stage before switching to his time trial machine for the sweeping descent and rolling run to the line.
The decision looked to be a sage one at the first time check. Despite losing a handful of seconds to make his bike change just shy of the summit of the climb, Contador swooped down the other side to clock the best time at the 12.7-kilometre mark, 12 seconds clear of overall threat Ion Izagirre (Bahrain-Merida) and 33 seconds ahead of the stage winner Roglic.
When the yellow jersey of Valverde came through the same point 9 seconds down on Contador, it meant that the provisional overall lead had passed onto the Trek-Segafredo man's shoulders, and as he pedalled smoothly back towards Eibar, he seemed destined to land his fifth overall win in the Basque Country.
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