Heading to the finish of Vuelta a España's stage 21, probably the first indication that things were about to go seriously awry for the race was that the finish itself was all but impossible to reach.
"No, you can't go down here," one heavily armed police officer standing at a barrier in a seemingly quiet street in Madrid's plush central district told journalists. This was despite the actual finish being barely a few hundred metres away in the Plaza de Cibeles square, on the same broad boulevard as ever. "Go round another street a bit further on."
