Alberto Contador has extended his lead in the 61st Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol after victory on stage three in Southern Spain.
Stage Three took the race into the Sierra Nevada mountains with a finish on the Alto de Haza Llanas (Güejar Sierra) at the end of a 159.8km stage which started in Motril.
Nine riders in Pello Bilbao of Caja Rural, Jeremy Roy of FDJ, Simon Geschke, Christopjhe Riblon of AG2R, Alexsejs Saromotins of IAM Cycling, Pieter Jacobs of Topsport, Marc De Maar of Roompot, Allesandro Bazzana of United Health Care, Angel Rubiano of Colombia and Sylvestre Syzmd, got in to a break and had a lead of 2.10 with 75kms left and 58 seconds with 39 kilometres left.
It was all over with twenty kilometres to go and Tinkoff Saxo working for race leader Alberto Contador took to the front of a peloton on the lower slopes of this punishing climb up the Alto de Haza Llanas, which had snow on either side of the finish line.
With 7.4kms to go, Basso and Contador attacked with Chris Froome and his Team Sky team mates back down the road.
On a ramp of 17%, Contador got onto the pedals and powered away, quickly taking a thirteen second lead.
Contador continued to power away and was forty seconds with 4.2kms left. Back down the road, Chris Froome shed Bardet and got the gap to Contador down to thirty seconds.
Contador kept dancing on the pedals, pedalling out of the saddle and using low gears get to him up the 18% ramps on the Alto de Haza Llanas.
Onto a narrow road with two kilometres left, Froome was 27 seconds down as Contador took on the ramps of seven and eight per cent.
Under the flam rouge with a lead of twenty four seconds, Contador pushed himself to win the stage in 4.19.16 and extend his lead in the race which has another mountain finish on stage four.
Froome finished nineteen seconds down in second place with Benat Intxaust just under two minutes down, followed by Romain Bardet and Peter Kennaugh who was 2.28 down.
Froome have moved up to second place in the general classification behind Contador going into stage four.