Irishman Nicholas Roche of Team Saxo Tinkoff won the second stage of the Vuelta a España.
Stage 2 was a 177.7km from Pontevedra to Alto do Monte da Groba and saw the riders set off with Astana's Janez Brajkovic in the leader's red jersey.
Alex Rasmussen (Garmin-Sharp), Greg Henderson (Lotto Belisol) and Francisco Aramandia (Caja Rural) were the main escapers inside the opening kilometre and had taken a nine minute lead over the peloton, by the time they reached the category 3 Alto de San Cosme climb.
Aramandia took the maximum points before the trio increased their lead to 12.37 with 88kms to go, when Rasmussen won the full quota of sprint points.
After getting to over thirteen minutes, the gap started to steadily drop and was down to a minute and thirty seconds with 12kms to go.
Amets Txurruka (Caja Rural) counter attacked as soon as Rasmussen and Aramendia got reined in. Due to the high rhythm set by Movistar, the front group was reduced to fourty riders but didn’t include race favorites Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel) and Sergio Henao (Team Sky) who got dropped and lost 2.41. Red jersey wearer Brajkovic lost contact with 1.5km to go.
Leopold König (NetApp-Endura) launched a stunning attack. Only Moreno, Roche and Pozzovivo managed to make it across.
Inside the final kilometre and Koenig and Pozzivio were caught by Moreno of Katusha and Nicholas Roche. Roche went to the left and away he went to take the win in a time of 4.37.09 beating Daniel Moreno by two seconds, Domenico Pozzovivo by six seconds and Leopold Konig by eleven seconds.
Fellow Irishman Danny Martin was 11th.
Roche's win was not enough to give him the leader's jersey. That went to Vincenzo Nibali of Astana, who leads Roche by eight seconds and ten seconds from Haimar Zubeldia Agirre of RadioShack Leopard.
Speaking to Tour Of Spain.com after the race, Roche said about his win: It’s a relief. After getting all those placing in the Grand Tours, I was wondering about my capacities and I was very frustrated to not making it. Recently, my team-mate Michael Rogers told me it would come soon, necessarily. And here I am, I win the first stage after the team time trial in the Vuelta, which is my favorite Grand Tour. I’m very happy."