Canondale's Allesandro De Marchi has won the seventh stage of the Vuelta a Espana.
On a 169km stage from Alhendín to Alcaudete, with Alejandro Valverde having a fifteen second lead over his Movistar team mate Nairo Quintana, all 198 riders set on another warm day.
Adam Hansen (Lotto-Belisol), Nikias Arndt (Giant-Shimano), Bob Jungels (Trek Factory Racing) and Dominica Nerz (BMC) were quickly in the first attack and were soon joined by David Millar (Garmin-Sharp), Pirmin Lang (IAM Cycling), Alexandr Kolobnev (Katusha), Lloyd Mondory (AG2R-La Mondiale), Martin Velits (Omega Pharma-QuickStep, Luis León Sanchez (Caja Rural), Simon Clarke (Orica-GreenEdge), Johan Le Bon (FDJ.fr), Jerome Coppel (Cofidis), Vincent Jerome (Europcar) and Gorka Izagirre (Movistar).
As Chris Froome crashed and was 1.20 down on the peloton, only Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp) and Johann Tschopp (IAM Cycling) with just over 133kms left.
Herbert Dupont (AG2R-La Mondiale) and Alessandro de Marchi (Cannondale) joined them a kilometre later.
Tschopp took the points on the climb as Bryan Nauleau and Aleksejs Saramontins abandoned
The four had a lead of 5.40 as Tschopp added the full compliment of points from the first intermediate sprint with 99kms left.
Forty five kilometres later and Tschopp was second to Ryder Hesjedal at the second sprint of the day.
Cancellera punctured as the gap started to fall slowly. Hesjedal cook it on a corner and went down and that gave Allesandro De Marchi the chance he needed.
Away he went and with the peloton deciding to let him go. Hesjedal and Dupont caught up to Tschopp, who was ninety seconds behind De Marchi who was now on the finishing straight as the peloton passed the two kilometres to go mark.
De Marchi had plenty of time to celebrate his win in 4:01:52, finishing 1.35 ahead of Hesjedal, Dupont and Tschopp.
The peloton came in 2.17 back with Gilbert leading home the rest ahead of Dan Martin and Chris Froome.
Alejandro Valverde finished three seconds later and leads the race going into stage seven.