The short 98 kilometres route from Alcala de Henares to Spain’s capital city Madrid was never likely to pose a problem for Aru, who began the day with a 1min 17sec lead over home favourite Joaquim Rodriquez, with a pan-flat profile making a bunch sprint almost inevitable.

Home favourites Omar Fraile and Carlos Verona joined France’s Laurent Pichon, the United States' Ben King and Italian duo Matteo Montaguti and Giovani Visconti in trying to prevent the sprinters from having a final opportunity to earn a stage win.

The six riders attacked on the second lap of the circuit entering Madrid, following a leisurely opening 40km of the stage, and opened up a 20-second advantage over the peloton.

Their advantage remained intact until 23km to the finish, as with the sprinters teams beginning to up the pace ahead of the finish, the lead began to deteriorate, causing King to attack his companions.

His efforts proved to be in vain as he was quickly brought back by the main field and, although there were late attacks by France’s Alexis Gougeard and Britain’s Geraint Thomas, the stage was decided by a sprint.

Orica Greenedge led the peloton into the final kilometre as they attempted to set up a win for their South African rider Daryl Impey, but Degenkolb powered past his rival to earn his first stage win of the 2015 edition of the three-week race.

It was the 10th career victory at the annual event.

The focus, though, remained on Aru as the Astana rider rolled over the line 20 seconds down on the field, celebrating claiming the race winner’s red jersey.

His final margin of victory over Rodriquez was 57 seconds.

Poland’s Rafal Majka secured his best-ever finish at a Grand Tour, ending 1:09 behind the winner, which meant Colombia’s Nairo Quintana missed out by 33 seconds on his second successive podium finish in a Grand Tour, having finished second at the Tour de France.

The runner-up Rodriquez was awarded the combined classification, while fellow Spaniard’s Alejandro Valverde and Fraile won the points and climbers jersey’s respectively.

Aru’s Astana team finished fourth in the team standings with the Movistar team ending with the lowest accumulative time.


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