The Madrilian Sierra offered the best possible finish to the 2015 Vuelta a España, with everything turning around on stage 20, the last day in terms of GC contention, over 175km between San Lorenzo de El Escorial and Cercedilla including two ascents towards Morcuera, one climb of Navacerrada and the decisive uphill towards Cotos. The Movistar Team made a strong gamble for the race podium and came only half a minute short of making it real, as Nairo Quintana played his chances with wisdom, strength and great team support.

Four riders from the squad directed by Arrieta and Garcia Acosta - Andrey Amador, Fran Ventoso, José Joaquín Rojas and Giovanni Visconti - entered a breakaway of nearly 40 members, which saw Rubén Plaza (LAM) jumping away early, on the first climb of Morcuera, to complete a 114km breakaway to victory, despite Visconti’s attempts in the pursuit group to reduce his gap. Behind, insistence by Astana during the second Morcuera ascent and an attack by Fabio Aru in the final slopes took Rafal Majka (TCS) and Quintana with him, while Valverde and race leader Tom Dumoulin (TGA) were left behind.

The descent and subsequent climb towards Cotos saw a multiple pursuit forming up. While the leader saw his advantage vanish and Valverde - helped out by Rojas and Ventoso - struggled but ultimately kept seventh overall, Quintana attacked on the hardest section of Cotos with Majka, the duo later joined by a providential Amador in the flat portion before the Navacerrada descent, plus some turns from Visconti in the finale. The two ammassed an almost 50" gap which made the Movistar Team dream of the podium. At the end, only 33" left Quintana away from Majka’s third spot, with Rodríguez (KAT) only 45” ahead in second. A more than satisfactory result after the Colombian’s illness through most of the second week of the race.

Aru will wear tomorrow the final red jersey on Madrid’s traditional circuit in the Paseo del Prado and the Gran Vía, while the Movistar riders hold the lead - and virtual victory - in the teams’ classification, only 24 hours away from repeating the exploit from the 1999 season by stepping all together onto the final podium on both Champs-Élysées and Cibeles.

“I feel happy. Obviously I would have been more if I'd won but, as I already stated a few days ago, I could perfectly be sitting now at home, in front of the TV, after all the suffering I had to go through during the Andorra stage and the days after that. Seeing myself almost out of the race, and ending it this way... it's really rewarding for me, something to be much satisfied about," Quintana said.

"There wasn't room on the previous stages to attack as we did on today's, the climbs before the finish suiting me really better. I had to save energy yesterday to give everything today, and we sort of succeeded - we gave all we had and the result was quite good. The strategy went nearly as we designed pre-race during the team talk. Up until my attack and through the summit of Cotos, with the support I got from my team-mates, it went fantastic, but we missed a bit of luck because our rivals also had team-mates with them, they were strong and could defend themselves from the attack.

"I really put much energy into this Vuelta to finish it. I was sad after having to abandon in 2014 with those crashes - I really felt like I had a strong chance to win it, or simply being within the race contenders. I couldn't leave this race again without making it to the end; I gave all that was left into my body and I'm really happy with this fourth place.”