After the rigours of the charged overall battle dominated on Tuesday, stage 17 should shift the focus to the sprinters and allow the GC riders to muster their energy for the crucial days ahead.
Although there are two category 2 ascents midway through the stage, the likelihood is that the fast men will be to the fore at the finish in Santander, with the stage being perhaps the last opportunity for the sprinters.
The twin climbs of the Alto de La Estranguada and the Alto del Caracol will give the breakaway a little breathing room but the road levels out as the route winds towards the Cantabrian coast. That should give the remaining sprinters’ teams the opportunity to tee up a bunch finale, though it may not be an easy task.
“Tomorrow is really complicated," said Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) after stage 16. "I think it is a good stage for us but it is also on paper a real stage for the breakaway, so I think controlling will be really difficult and a big day for the team.”
Before Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) crashed out of the race on Tuesday the winner of three stages at this year's edition of the race would have been one of the key favourites. However, now it will be Groves racing to the line in the green jersey of the points leader with rivals like Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech) and Pavel Bittner (dsm-firmenich PostNL) trying to trump the two-time stage winner.
Still, no matter what happens on the line or during the intermediate sprint at 117.7km into the day of racing, it's unlikely to shift green because just as Van Aert had looked to have a stranglehold on the classification before the crash, so does the new wearer Groves. The Australian starts the day with 182 points in the classification while the nearest rival Harold Tejada (Astana-Qazaqstan) has 95.
Stage 17 climbs
- Alto de La Estranguada (5.5km at 8.7%) cat 2, km 54.8
- Alto del Caracol (7.2km at 6.2%) cat 2, km 70.4
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