Fabio Aru is set to win the 70th Vuelta a España .
The penultimate stage which saw only six seconds between Tom Dumoulin and Fabio Aru involved more climbs on a 175.8km stage from San Lorenzo de El Escorial to Cercedilla.
Eleven riders in Rubén Plaza (Lampre-Merida), Olivier Le Gac (FDJ), Adam Hansen (Lotto-Soudal) Jaco Venter (MTN-Qhubeka), Lawrance Warbasse (IAM Cycling), Dani Navarro (Cofidis) Jay McCarthy (Tinkoff-Saxo), José Gonçalves (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), Miguel Ángel Rubiano (Colombia) and Yukiya Arashiro (Europcar) got away and after twenty five kilometres, they had a lead where 34 seconds ahead of a group of twenty four riders and 5.17 ahead of the peloton.
Goncalves shot out of the leading group to go over the Navacerrada but with 114kms to go, Rubén Plaza went away on his own.
As the peloton dropped to 11.45 down, Plaza continued on his merry way followed by thirty chasers who were just under two minutes behind him.
With fifty kilometres to go, Fabio Arun made an attack out of the peloton which Dumoulin managed to mark as Plaza sailed over the Puerto de la Morcuera climb.
Aru put in another attack and this time, Dumoulin was unable to respond. The gap opened up two twenty seconds and forty seven seconds whilst up the road, Plaza was riding over the top of the Puerto de Cotos with a lead of 1.48 over VIsconti, Goncalves and De Marchi, 4.45 over Nairo Quintana and Rafal Majka with the Aru group is at 5:15 and Tom Dumoulin now 7:50 down with seventeen kilometres to go.
Plaza continued and with no-one able to get near him, the Spaniard took the victory on stage twenty in 4:37:05.
Jose Goncalves finished second, 1.07 down with Alessandro De Marchi of BMC rounding out the podium.
Fabio Aru came in more than 3.35 down on Plaza's time and after seven minutes and thirty seconds in came a dejected Tom Dumoulin, who said: “At the moment, it’s just disappointment. Tomorrow I will be proud but today it’s just disappointment,” he says sadly. “I was just empty, I had no legs. I had an idea that was the case but I just fought for what I was worth and in the end you just got to deal with it.”, to see Fabio Aru in the lead going into the final stage.
Aru, who wins the race by a margin of 1.17 from Joaquim Rodriquez, paid tribute to his Astana team mates and said: "This victory is thanks to my teammates, it’s not just about me. They’ve been phenomenal for the whole Vuelta – Mikel, Luis Leon and Dario Cataldo – and we think of the guys who aren’t here, Paolo Tiralongo and Vincenzo Nibali. We had our difficulties at the start of this Giro but we’ve worked hard and we’ve been very united."
Ruben Plaza said: “I was aware that attacking at more than 110 km to the arrival was quite foolish, but my feelings were so good, I knew well the course and I wanted to exploit all the remaining energies in the last suitable left stage in order to aim to a victory – Plaza explained – I noticed that the breakaway group was not united any more and so I decided that it was the best moment to attack, despite the kilometers to the arrival.
"The advantage became immediately fairly large, I focused my attention on my performance and, thanks to my legs, I defended it and I obtained such amazing victory.
"I’m living a perfect season, I thank my team mate, my team and all the fans“.