Przemyslaw Niemiec (Lampre-Merida) has taken the win on stage fifteen of the 69th Vuelta a Espana.
A 152.2km stage from Oviedo to Lagos de Covadonga.on a wet day saw Alberto Contador of Tinkoff Saxo in a comfortable lead and the Spaniard led out the peloton which was reduced after twenty five kilometres when Anthony Roux was forced to abandon, meaning that his team were going into the last week of the race with only four riders.
John Degenkolb, the points leader took the points at the first intermediate sprint with 97.2kms to go and then joined John Przemyslaw Niemiec (Lampre-Merida), Cameron Meyer (Orica-GreenEdge), Kristof Vandewalle (Trek Factory Racing) and Francisco Aramendia (Caja Rural).
The peloton let them go and by the time they had reached the feedzone, they were eleven minutes clear.
Degenkolb took the second sprint before Julian Arredondo (Trek Factory Racing) abandoned and with forty kilometres left, the gap was down to eight minutes.
Dan Martin of Garmin Sharp crashed and changed bikes with a team mate but was 1.28 behind the peloton who were 6.45 behind the five escapers.
Degenkolb was dropped by the escapers on the second climb which was followed by a dangerous descent that saw the riders having to play it safe.
The gap was down to 4.30 with 25kms to go and Martin still thirty seconds behind the peloton of about thirty riders.
Another twenty seconds were clawed back when the peloton re-united after the descent and the abandonment of Mondory and Martin had got back into the peloton before they started on the final twelve kilometres of the stage, which was the climb to Lagos de Covadonga is 12.2km long, which had an average gradient of 7.2% and ramps of 17.5%.
The attacks from the four escapers started with Meyer and Niemiec trying their luck.
It worked and Meyer and Niemiec were still away with 6.5kms to go until Niemiec dropped Meyer a kilometre and a half later but Contador was only a minute behind with 5kms to go.
Chris Froome refused to give up and gave chase to Contador who was thirty seconds behind Niemiec. The 2013 Tour De France winner bridged back to Aru and was just behind Contador, Alejandro Valverde and Joaquim Rodriguez.
Przemyslaw Niemiec kept going and the Lampre-Merida rider took the win in 4.11.09 with Valverde second and Rodriguez third. Chris Froome finished sixth.
Contador lost time on Valverde as well as bonus seconds but still leads the race overall with a lead of thirty one seconds over Valverde, 1.20 over Chris Froome, 1.20 over Rodriguez, 2.22 over Fabio Aru, 2.57 over Uran and 4.55 over seventh placed Dan Martin.