Stage 17 was the first of a pair of HC summit finishes in this final week of Vuelta 2021 and it absolutely was *not* a day the break was going to take the stage. Except that, as usual, the Vuelta turned the tables on us. Because someone from a break *did* win the stage and even went into the red jersey. Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) attacked out of the GC group on the ascent of the penultimate climb, with only Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) for company about 60km from the finish, and rode off in seek of glory. But no matter how much it rained (and it poured), how much Bernal tested Roglic on the long, treacherous descent (and he did and it was), or how much he must have been willing himself to stay in front of the Slovenian powerhouse, when the elastic snapped about 8km from the summit of the Covadonga, it was Bernal on the wrong end.
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