The Vuelta ends in Granada rather than with the usual processional sprint into a capital. The stage covers 112 km on circuits around the city at an altitude of roughly 700 metres, with about 1,000 metres of climbing and a series of short rises rather than one decisive climb. Granada was the seat of the Nasrid emirate, the last Muslim state in Iberia, until 1492, and the Alhambra above the city is the reason the race has come here to finish. A closing day on this terrain is not guaranteed to stay quiet, and a leader holding only seconds cannot treat it as a formality.