Joaquin Rodriquez won the fifth stage of the Vuelta a España this afternoon.
The race left the Sierra Nevada mountain and made its way at a good pace along the 200km to Valdepeñas de Jaén.
HTC Highroad's Michael Albasini was out on his own until the peloton with Bradley Wiggins near the front, swept him up.
David Moncoutie took control and broke away, getting 31 seconds ahead with 7kms to go.
On the final climb approaching the finish, he was caught by the peloton lead by Daneil Moreno and Joaquin Rodriiquez (pictured below), the pre-stage favourite who went on to win in a time of 4hr 42 mins and 54 seconds.
“I’ve clearly achieved more than I expected with the gap I created over my adversaries on such a short distance”, Rodriguez explained after the race. “It was a hard stage with a breakaway comprising riders of the calibre of Rein Taarämae and Micheal Albasini, so it took a lot of work to prevent them from taking more than two or three minutes advantage. The last kilometre was extremely spectacular. It was like a big Belgian classic with a huge crowd. Everyone was yelling “Purito!” It was very enjoyable.”
Poels was second with Moreno third and Nicholas Roche (pictured below) in eighth.
Bradley Wiggins finished in 20th place with Chris Froome 21st and Daniel Martin 30th.
Sylvain Chavanel keeps his leaders jersey by nine seconds from Moreno. Chris Froome is 19th, Bradley Wiggins is 20th, Daniel Martin is 24th, Nicholas Roche is 25th and Ian Stannard is 135th out of 194 riders,
Tomorrow's sixth stage is from Úbeda to Córdoba and is 196.8km long.
Pictures copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM and Tour Of Spain/Graham Watson