Stefan Küng maintained an extremely high speed throughout the entire course.
As one of the favorites to win the closing ITT stage of the Vuelta a España, he was given live coverage by the official broadcast for almost the whole ride.
Among the riders who had already finished, the current best time belonged to UAE Team Emirates rider Baroncini, but the fastest times at the first two checkpoints had both been set by Trek's Vacek.
However, Vacek had clearly mismanaged his energy distribution today. He had pushed too hard at the first two checkpoints, causing him to fall apart somewhat over the final stretch.
But Stefan Küng, wearing the Swiss national champion's jersey, had clearly come for the final stage win today. After passing the first 8-kilometer checkpoint, he immediately beat Vacek's fastest time by 18 seconds.
Even more terrifyingly, after the second checkpoint at 17.5 kilometers, Stefan Küng had savagely beaten Vacek by 41 seconds.
In the end, with an average speed of 55.755 km/h and a total time of 26 minutes 28.37 seconds, he became the first rider to go under 27 minutes. He beat Baroncini, who had occupied the hot seat for a long time, by 43.57 seconds and took first place on the live standings with an overwhelming advantage.
Seeing Stefan Küng put out that kind of speed, Huang Chong felt quite a bit of pressure.
Although a general classification rider like him basically had no weaknesses, and his time-trial ability was among the very best in the world, today's stage was ultimately dominated by flat roads.
In a time trial without climbs, it came down to who could sustain high power output for longer.
After Stefan Küng took the hot seat, none of the riders behind him could beat his time.
The rider who came