Chris Horner grabs lead as Vuelta heads for very exciting finish

This year's Tour of Spain is headed for a grandstand finish with everything to play for between the top four riders. In today's penultimate mountain stage Chris Horner overcame Vincenzo Nibali's three second lead, to take the leader's jersey by three seconds. At 1.06 min Alejandro Valverde is close behind and Joaquim (Purito) Rodriguez, today's stage winner, not out of contention at 1.57 min. Everything will be down to tomorrow's fearsome climb of Angliru.

Can Chris Horner take the Vuelta at nearly 42 years young? Can Nibali recover or is he shot – having lost time on the last three mountain stages? What of Valverde or Purito? Still possible for any one of these four to win! Not to be missed tomorrow.

2012 Vuelta: Contador wins the war but Joaquin Rodriguez wins most of the battles

Today Alberto Contador duly won the very exciting and extremely tough 2012 Vuelta a España with the very impressive John Degenkolb taking his fifth sprint victory. 

I would have much preferred to have seen Joaquin Rodriguez win overall victory rather than Contador, who is just back from his doping suspension. Rodriguez proved on a number of occasions that he was superior to both Contador and Alejandro Valverde on the many climbs. Unfortunately he was comprehensively sandbagged on Stage 17 when Contador soloed to victory on Fuente Dé after the last rest day. I just trust that Contador was clean that day and won both the stage and the overall race on his own merit.