Fabio Aru has won the 70th Vuelta a España.
Aru, having snatched the race lead with a decisive attack on the penultimate stage to take 1.16 lead over Joaquim Rodriquez, led the peloton out on the final 98.8km stage from Alcalá de Henares to Madrid.
All the peloton was together as Astana led the riders over the finish line for the first of ten laps of the Spanish capital which was under an air exclusion zone due to an incident at Madrid's airport.
As Joaquim Rodriguez suffered a puncture, Valverde wins the sprint and took the points to go ahead of Rodriquez in the green jersey competition.
Benjamin King (Cannondale-Garmin), Matteo Montaguti (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Omar Fraile (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Laurent Pichon (FDJ), Carlos Verona (Etixx-Quick Step) and Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) got into a break with eight laps to go.
They were still clear with two laps to go but the peloton closed in and only Verona was on the front when they took the bell lap.
Illo Keisse of Etixx Quick Step attacked as did Alexis Gougeard of AG2R before Orica GreenEdge took over with three kilometres left.
Giant Alpecin brought up Degenkolb who went and then went again to win in 2.34.15 by two bike lengths from Danny Van Poppel, Jean Pierre Drucker, Darryl Impey and Tosh Van Der Sande.
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