The 2010 Vuelta a España was held from August 28 to September 19 and was won by Vincenzo Nibali. The race began in Seville and ended, as is tradition, in Madrid.

The race covered 3,333.8 km (2,071.5 mi). There was critical analysis that this Vuelta, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the first edition of the race, was an especially difficult one and that stage 16 was the queen stage.

The stage 1 team time trial was held at night.

Vuelta runner-up Ezequiel Mosquera and Xacobeo-Galicia teammate David García Dapena were announced on September 30 to have given positive tests for hydroxyethyl starch during the race, a substance which is known as a masking agent for erythropoietin (EPO). All results from Mosquera after 12 september (stage 15) were annulled, which caused him to lose his second place. Garcia later was announced to have tested positive for EPO during the race as well.

Sixteen teams were automatically selected due to previous agreements and there were six wildcard places. Three of these were given to UCI Professional Continental teams, and three to UCI ProTour teams.

The Vuelta a España (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈbwelta a esˈpaɲa]; English: Tour of Spain) is a three-week road bicycle racing stage race that is one of the three "Grand Tours" of Europe and part of the UCI World Ranking calendar. The race lasts three weeks and attracts cyclists from around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages. Individual times to finish each stage are totalled to determine the overall winner at the end of the race. The rider with the lowest aggregate time at the end of each day wears the Red Jersey.

Preset = TimeVertical_OneBar_UnitYear ImageSize = width:220 height:1520 PlotArea = bottom:220 left:40 Period = from:1935 till:2012 ScaleMajor = start:1935 increment:5 ScaleMinor = start:1935 increment:1 TimeAxis = order:reverse

Colors =

BackgroundColors = canvas:canvas

Legend = orientation:vertical columns:1 top:200 left: 45

PlotData =

First held in 1935 and annually since 1955, the Vuelta runs for three weeks in a changing route across Spain. The inaugural event (1935) saw 50 entrants face a 3,411 km (2,119 mi.) course over only 14 stages, averaging over 240 km (149 mi.) per stage. It was inspired by the success of the Tours in France and Italy, and the boost they brought to the circulations of their sponsoring newspapers (L'Auto and La Gazzetta dello Sport respectively); Juan Pujol of the daily Informaciones instigated the race to increase its circulation.

Igor Antón Hernández (born March 2, 1983 in Galdakao, Basque Country) is a Basque professional road bicycle racer for UCI ProTour team Euskaltel-Euskadi.

Since turning professional in 2005, Anton's major achievement was winning the sixteenth stage of the Vuelta a España 2006, between Almería and the Calar Alto Observatory.

After impressing his team directors in 2007, where he won a stage at the Tour de Romandie, Antón was soon picked out to be the team leader for the general classification (GC) in the 2008 Vuelta a España. The year started well, and in June he came second in the Euskal Bizikleta. Later in the same month, Antõn won the second stage in the UCI ProTour race Tour de Suisse. In the GC he came home third. In September at the Vuelta a España, Antón was in the best form of his career and held the pace of the likes of Alberto Contador and Alejandro Valverde up the mountains. A fall on the stage to Alto de L'Angliru ended his ambitions in the Vuelta. The fall caused a fractured collarbone, and Antón's season came to an early end.

Thor Hushovd (born Grimstad, Aust-Agder, Norway, 18 January 1978) is a Norwegian professional road bicycle racer riding for BMC Racing Team. He is known for sprinting and time trialing and is the 2010 Norwegian and world road champion. He is the first Norwegian to lead the Tour de France, and first Scandinavian to win the road race in cycling world road championship. He is also the Scandinavian with the most stage wins in Grand Tours.

Hushovd won the under-23 time trial world championship and the under-23 versions of Paris–Roubaix and Paris–Tours before turning professional in 1998. He was Norwegian time trial champion in 2004 and 2005 and road race champion in 2004 and 2010. In 2006, he won seven UCI ProTour races and two stages of the Tour de France. He won the prologue in Strasbourg and led after the first day despite a cut arm. He continued with stitches and regained the yellow jersey after stage 2 with a third place. He won the last stage, beating Robbie McEwen in a sprint. In the 2006 Vuelta a España he won stage 6, wore the golden jersey for three stages and won the points classification