Ireland's Daniel Martin won the Vuelta a España ninth stage today.
This was a 183km stage from Villacastín - La Covatilla saw Fisher Brazilian road champion not starting following the withdrawals yesterday of Tyler Farrar and Oscare Freire.
The first mountain climb came at the Category 3 Puerto de la Cruz de Hierro after only 8.6kms and Matteo Montaguti of AG2R took that ahead of Sylvain Chavanel.
Four escapers including Sebastian Lang had got ten and a half minutes away after making their getaway after 16 kilometres.
The quartet split into two with Lang and Vacansoleil's Pim Lighart leading followed by AG2R's Toribo and Keizer also of Vacansoleil some 36 seconds back with 35kms to go.
Lang took the four points for the second sprint of the day at Béjar with 164.8 km gone.
The race now started to go uphill to the 1980m Sierra De Béjar mountain at La Covatillia. Lang anf Lighart were 2;12 ahead of the peloton lead by Katusha and Skil Shimano.
Lang, who is retiring at the end of this season in which has had ridden three Grand Tours, dropped Lighart just before the 10kms to go banner.
Bradley Wiggins, Nicholas Roche and Daniel Martin got to the front and with 5kms to go, the attacks, which saw Lang, who was named the most aggressive rider of the day, swept up started to come thick and fast to try
Martin and Roche also attacked for a kilometre. Martin got ahead of his cousin before Vincente Nibali joined him at the front as the riders who were split into five or six groups, made their way through the big crowds.
Wiggins and Chris Froome got to the front of the chasing group and then caught up to Martin and Nibali as race leader Joaquin Rodriquez started to lose time.
The Londoner in the British road race champion's jersey was in the lead with one kilometre to go and led until 200m to go when Daniel Martin went and won the stage in a time of 4hr 52 mins and 15 seconds ahead of Rabobank's Mollema, JJ. Cobo, Wiggins and Froome. Nicholas Roche finished 19th.
Bauko Mollema now leads the race by a second from Rodqiquez. Daniel Martin is 12th, Bradley Wiggins is 13th, Chris Froome 14th, Nicholas Roche 19th
Speaking after the race, Mollema of Rabobank (pictured above0 said: “I’m obviously happy to take the red jersey but I’m disappointed to have lost the stage. I’m angry. It’s my fault. I’ve been beaten by surprise. The red jersey is a consolation price. It’s a nice gift to conclude the day. Uphill, the head wind was very strong and I stayed alongside Wiggins and Froome. The group was more and more reduced. I passed “Purito” with 5km to go, he didn’t look super. That was a real surprise! I haven’t seen Scarponi. I’ll fight in the time trial of course but Wiggins is quite close [at one minute] and it’ll be hard. I feel good and I know that hard stages will come after the rest day. I think that I can fight against the best climbers. It’s something special to lead a Grand Tour. I’ve dreamt about that for a few years.”
Tomorrow is a 47km time trial in Salamanca.
Pictures copyright of Tour Of Spain/ Graham Watson.