With Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL (Pavel Bittner), rather than
Alpecin-Deceuninck (Kaden Groves), doing much of the controlling in the peloton behind, the breakaway were actually given something of surprisingly large advantage. With all the climbing done for the day and just 45km to go for example, the leading quartet still held a lead of 3:41 over the peloton.
Into the last 25km though, and a notable acceleration from the peloton was causing severe damage to the time gap, now standing at just 1:38. With 15km to go and despite having a teammate in the breakaway which still led the race, Victor Campenaerts launched an attack from the peloton. Ultimately though, the Belgian was not given any leeway.
At 10km to go, the leaders were down to three with Champion dropped, with their lead down to just 34 seconds. With the rain absolutely torrential in Santander for the finale, the conditions were far from ideal. Nevertheless, the brave breakaway were still fighting with all their might. At 2.7km to go though, they were finally caught.
Immediately following the catch however, the counter attacks started up once more, led by Mauro Schmid, Enzo Leijnse and that man Campenaerts again. Through the flamme rouge the leading trio had daylight but once the sprints launched, Kaden Groves in the Green Jersey took the win ahead of
Pavel Bittner and
Arne Marit.