The race began with a 7 km (4.3 mi) team time trial on 30 August in Granada.

The Vuelta came to a close twenty-three days later with a 102.2 km (63.5 mi) flat stage, which brought the peloton into the streets of Madrid.

Nineteen teams entered the race, which was won by the Spaniard Alberto Contador of Astana.

[1][2] Second and third respectively were the American Levi Leipheimer of Astana and the Spanish Carlos Sastre of CSC–Saxo Bank.

[9][10] While Scott–American Beef – formerly known as Saunier Duval–Scott – was excluded from the event as a result of the doping cases of Riccardo Riccò and Leonardo Piepoli in the 2008 Tour de France.

[14] This set the stage for an extremely turbulent first week in terms of race leadership, as Alejandro Valverde, Daniele Bennati, Levi Leipheimer, Sylvain Chavanel, and Alessandro Ballan would all don the maillot oro between the race's beginning and Stage 7.

[19] The next several stages were flat, and won by sprinters and breakaways, meaning Martínez was able to retain the overall lead for a time.

Stage 13, which ended at the storied Alto de El Angliru, revealed the race's overall contenders.

Alberto Contador won the stage[3] and in so doing gained a lead over Leipheimer, Carlos Sastre, Ezequiel Mosquera, and Valverde which he would never relinquish.

Contador padded this lead by winning the stage the next day,[20] and kept it in the race's second and final ITT, where his strongest challenger was ironically his teammate Leipheimer.

With the overall victory, Contador became the first Spaniard and fifth rider ever to complete the career sweep of the Grand Tours.

For the general classification, calculated by adding the finishing times of the stages per cyclist, the leader received a golden jersey.

The other jerseys that the cyclists owns are worn in the next stage by the second-place (or, if needed, third or fourth-place) rider in that classification.