Katusha's Joaquin Rodriquez won the Vuelta a España Stage Nineteen on the Alto Naranco as Chris Horner snatched back the race lead.
Stage nineteen was a 181km from San Vicente de la Barquera to Alto Naranco, which saw race leader Vincenzo Nibali going into the stage with only a three second lead over Radio Shack's Chris Horner.
This was the first inclusion of the Naranco since 1997 but there was plenty of racing to be done before they arrived at this climb.
David Tanner (Belkin), Francis De Greef (Lotto), Rafael Valls Ferri (Vacansoleil), Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky), Georg Preidler (Argos), Danilo Wyss (BMC), Benat Intxausti (Movistar), Paul Voss (NetApp), Nicolas Edet (Cofidis), Pablo Urtasun (Euskaltel), Manuele Mori (Lampre), Leigh Howard (Orica GreenEDGE), David Arroyo (Caja Rural), Xabier Zandio (Team Sky), Dominik Nerz (BMC), Andriy Grivko (Astana), Christian Meier (Orica GreenEDGE), Daniele Ratto (Cannondale), Ivan Santaromita (BMC) and Nico Sijmens (Cofidis) attacked early building a 2.30 lead with 100kms gone.
Edvald Boasson Hagen took the first sprint of the day before Jonny Hoogerland abandoned.
On the Alto de San Emillano and with speeds at an average of 45.1km/h for the first three hours, the gap was three minutes between the escapers - Preidler & Boasson Hagen, the remaining chasers and group and the peloton.
Boasson-Hagen took the points for being first over the Alto de San Emillano climb ahead of Preidler and King Of The Mountains leader Nicolas Edet, who shot out of the chasing group to take the extra points.
Priedler went off on his own and took the second category three climb before the riders came into Oviedo.
Saxo Tinkoff working for Nicholas Roche were on the front of the peloton attacking as Net App's JJ Mendes got past Priedler and took over.
Herrada, Verdugo and Pauwels were just ahead of the peloton as Mendes continued up the Alto Naranco with 1.3kms to go.
Nicholas Roche and Scarponi went as did Joaquin Rodriquez who got away to win in a time of 4.16.13, Diego Ulissi, Dani Moreno, Sammy Sanchez and Chris Horner with Nicholas Roche tenth.
With Vincenzo Nibali having allowed Chris Horner and Valverde to get in front of him, the red jersey now passes back to Chris Horner leads the race by three seconds.
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