Just as in 2017, the Vuelta a Espaņaīs third and final week kicks off with an individual time trial, which, given the current stalemate in the mountains, could prove crucial for the overall outcome of the race. Running between the village of Santillana del Mar and the Oscar Freire Sports Stadium in the former triple world championīs home town of Torrelavega, stage 16īs time trial is, at 32 kilometres, long and varied enough to establish some important differences. But the undulating route through the rural hinterland of the Cantabrian seaport of Santander is by no means so challenging a time trial that it is doomed to kill off the GC battle completely - not least with three tough mountain stages to come between here and Madrid.ADVERTISEMENT Instead, this time trial, with its 390 metres of vertical climbing on draggy well-surfaced roads, could well establish the kind of middle-sized time gaps that might see more room for manoeuvre for all-out attacks from the GC contenders in the mountains. Historically, that has been the case. Back in 1973 when Torrelevega first hosted a time trial -this will be its third, after Colombiaīs Santiago Botero won a 44-kilometre test in 2001 - Eddy Merckx won a 17-kilometre effort hands-down, boosting his overall lead. But that didnīt stop Luis Ocaņa, who lost 36 seconds to Merckx, attacking the Belgian star time and again the following day on the ascent to the Basque climb Orduņa, and dropping him to boot. Ocaņa was finally caught by Merckx and Thevenet before the finish in Mirando del Ebro, but his attacks on Orduņa, clad in the red and yellow of Spanish National Champion, lingered long in the memories of local fans. The route
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