Bert Jan Lindeman has won the seventh stage of the 70th Vuelta a España.
With Esteban Chaves of Orica GreenEdge back in the lead after his victory on stage six, stage seven was a 191.1km stage from Jódar to La Alpujarra.
Twelve kilometres in and Carlos Quintero (Colombia), Amets Txurruka (Caja Rural), Ilia Koshevoy (Lampre-Merida), Bert Jan Lindeman (LottoNL-Jumbo), Jerome Cousin (Europcar) formed a break which was soon 4.20 clear.
After 87kms, they were 10.37 ahead as Txurruka, the most combatatibe rider of the day, led them over the category three the puerto de los Blancares climb.
With 55 kilometres left, the gap stood at 10.18 but by the time, Lindeman took the sprint witn 32kms left in Lanjaón, the gap was down to 8.02.
The Alto de Capileira was the final climb and the gap was dropping slowly to 2,42 with 7.3kms left.
Nine hundred metres later and Cousin attacked on the first of eight hairpins up the climb and then Koshevoy took the lead on a gradient of 5%.who was again joined by Cousin.
Onto the most difficult section and the duo still had a ninety second lead whilst down the road, Dan Martin, who is joining Etixx Quick Step, attacked out of the peloton whilst Froome dropped out of the back of the group of favourites.
Koshevoy carried on with Lindeman replacing Cousin, who was delayed by a motorbike as they went under the flam rouge and it was Bert Jan Lindeman who rode away to win in 5.10.24 with Koshevoy second, followed by Aru, Cousin and Majka.
The race leader Esteban Chaves was sixth, and was followed by Valverde, Quintana, Meintjes, Roche and Martin with Chris Froome 17th, 1.03 down.
Chaves continues to lead the race from Dumoulin, Martin and Riche with Chris Froome 12th.