Vuelta Skelter: Roche poach and Dumoulin's Aru with a view

Well, who would have thought that Thursday’s finish would have resulted in this…

I mean, come on... Haimar Zubeldia second in a sprint finish??

Although to be fair, more people would have predicted a win for Sky's Roche than those who foresaw a Tom Dumoulin overall victory at the beginning of the Vuelta – not that that’s saying much.

Right, no further Aru - let’s take a look at the risers and fallers of stage 18 to Riaza…

Things started well for Team Sky when Roche managed to get into a large 25-man break after 50km of racing.

While Roche rode around six minutes ahead of the pack, some of us kept ourselves entertained by reading his latest column in the Irish Independent.

The answer to the second question was probably because, to be honest, the headline of the piece was a bit more interesting than what followed. As you guessed, Roche was forced to cut off the arm of his skin suit during Wednesday’s ITT to ease the pressure on his elbow wounds. And that was about it.

Anyway, talking of wounds, it turned out Roche had picked up another one en route to his first win for Team Sky, denying a Basque silent ninja an elusive Grand Tour stage win.

Yes, it was heartbreak for the 38-year-old veteran of 26 Grand Tours, who could only match his best ever placing in 11 Vueltas and counting with second place behind Roche.

To be fair, Zubeldia’s careworn climbing legs were hardly conducive for this kind of flat finish.

Still, he managed to pick up an award for his troubles – if not the one that mattered – and his children were there to join dad on a rare foray onto something he was told was called the podium.

Before the stage Dumoulin said he no longer had to ride the race at his own pace, rather at that of Fabio Aru – and the rangy Dutchman did just that, sticking to the Sicilian like, well, like those nasal strip stick to that very same Sicilian. Except not on his nose…

With many of his Giant-Alpecin team blown away quite ahead of the final climb, Dumoulin kept his cool and slotted into the Astana train with aplomb.

And having stifled all the attacks on the way up, Dumoulin went down quicker than, well, insert your own joke about the work force of Amsterdam’s renowned red light district. Or maybe just read this tweet:

His never-say-die qualities drew further comparisons with the T-1000 from the Terminator franchise.

Give Aru a pat on the back for trying – and the Italian had certainly done his homework.

But in the end the gradient was just not steep enough to put Dumoulin into any real trouble and there was a lot of this…

… but with a net result of this.

Purito famously lost the 2012 Vuelta after Alberto Contador’s unexpected ambush on the road to Fuente Dé – and that was exactly the kind of attack he will have to channel if he wants to end up atop the podium in Madrid on Sunday.

Just moments after Scott wrote these tweets, Rodriguez looked to bury his demons with a dig off the front once team-mate Angel Vicioso had prepared the terrain.

Sure, it lasted all of 30 seconds before being overturned by the Astana machine – but it was an indication that Rodriguez has not resigned himself to losing another Grand Tour from a leading position just days from the finish.

It has to be said, spectators were few and far between in the rolling countryside 100km north of Madrid.

Yet hardly surprising given that the region around Segovia is one of the less populated areas of Spain.