At the end of the final stage, there were 158 riders left in the race, with 40 riders failing to finish.[6] Froome and Nibali were both among the riders who left the race before it reached Madrid: Froome abandoned the race after breaking his foot on stage 11; Nibali was disqualified after receiving illegal assistance from his team car during stage 2.[7][8] The race was won by Fabio Aru (Astana). He first took the red jersey (indicating the lead of the general classification) following the mountainous stage 11.[9] He lost it first to Joaquim Rodríguez (Team Katusha) on the uphill finish of stage 16,[10] then to Tom Dumoulin (Team Giant–Alpecin) in the individual time trial on stage 17.[11] Aru was six seconds behind Dumoulin going into the penultimate stage of the race; an attack on the final climb of the Vuelta dropped Dumoulin and Aru was able to take the overall victory in the race.[12] Rodríguez finished second, 57 seconds behind Aru, with Rafał Majka (Tinkoff–Saxo) a further 12 seconds behind in third.[6] Valverde won the points classification and Rodríguez the combination classification. The mountains classification was won by Omar Fraile (Caja Rural–Seguros RGA). Movistar won the team classification.[13]
Teams
The 17
UCI Professional Continental team. Two French teams, Cofidis and Team Europcar, also received entries. MTN–Qhubeka were invited for the second consecutive year after also securing their first ever entry into the Tour de France. The final team to be invited was Colombia. One prominent team that was not invited was UnitedHealthcare.[14]
The 198 riders that competed in the 2015 Vuelta a España represented 37 countries.[62] Riders from twelve countries won stages during the race; the largest number of stage wins for any country was four, achieved by both the Spanish riders and the Dutch riders.[63]
^ abcdHood, Andrew (29 August 2015). "Vuelta crash takes out van Garderen, Martin". VeloNews. Archived from the original on 31 August 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2015. Tejay Van Garderen (BMC Racing), Dan Martin (Cannondale–Garmin), Kris Boeckmans (Lotto–Soudal), and Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) were among those hitting the pavement the hardest in a big pileup with about 50km to go in the 182.5km stage.
^ ab"Vuelta Skelter: The joy of six for red hot Dutchman Dumoulin". Yahoo!Eurosport. TF1 Group. 11 September 2015. Retrieved 11 September 2015. DOWN – ARNAUD CORTEILLE & STEPHANE ROSSETTO: It's always cruel when your race ends so near to the finish, so spare a thought for the French duo who got in a tangle on the final climb before being forced to retire from the Vuelta.
(in Spanish). Grupo Godó. 2 September 2015. Retrieved 2 September 2015. Quien no está ya en carrera es Vladimir Isaychev, compañero de Joaquim 'Purito' Rodríguez en el Katusha. El ruso arrastraba problemas físicos desde hace varios días y hoy no ha tomado la salida.