Esteban Chaves of Orica Green Edge has won the second stage of the 70th Vuelta a España.
After yesterday's neutralised team time trial, the battle for the red jersey, which was being worn today by Peter Velits of BMC, got under way with a stage for the climbers with a summit finish.
It was a 158.7km stage from Alhaurin de la Torre to Caminito del Rey and saw no real attacks in the opening twenty kilometres.
But five kilometres later, a break did form and it was Nelson Oliviera (Lampre-Merida), Davide Villella (Cannondale-Garmin), Walter Pedraza (Team Colombia), Bert Jan Lindeman (LottoNL-Jumbo), José Gonçalves (Caja Rural) and Matteo Montaguti (AG2R), who were in it.
This group of six were 3.40 ahead after thirty kilometres as Matteo Pelluchi of IAM Cycling was forced to abandon the race following a crash.
The gap did drop a little but was at 3.12 with less than one hundred kilometres to go.
There was a crash involving Andrew Talansky, Alex Howes, Zico Waeytens and David Tanner but all were able to get back into the race which saw the first climb of the day - the Alto de Ardales, a category three climb of five kilometres with an average gradient of 4.4% was taken by Walter Pedraza of Team Colombia who will be in the King Of The Mountains jersey for stage three.
The six out front were 2.21 ahead with 43 kms left on a day where temperatures were around the twenty eight degree mark.
Geraint Thomas started to put in a big turn for Team Sky and the gap dropped to 1.50 within five kilometres of a a stage which had seen five team buses stuck some six kilometres from the finish.
With 30.3kms left, there was a massive crash which took out a lot of riders and slowed down most of the peloton. Vincenzo Nibali, Nieve, Tiralongo, Bouhani, Niemiec were all involved as was an IAM Cycling rider in David Tanner who needed medical treatment from an ambulance.
Marcus Burghardt of BMC crashed further up the road as José Gonçalves put in an attack and took the sprint, the four points and three bonus seconds with 19.7kms left.
Both Tanner and Niemiec of Lampre-Merida were forced out of the race as all of those in the break were swept up by the peloton who got passed the five team buses which were parked by a dam with seven kilometres to go.
West Midlands born Dan Martin, one of the stage favourites, was handily placed in the peloton which started on the final climb - the Alto de la Mesa, a category three climb of 4.7kms with an average gradient of 6.5% with the worst parts at 13%.
Europcar's Cyril Gautier was the first to attack on the climb until Nairo Quintana brought him back with three kilometres left. Tom Dumoulin of Giant Alpecin was next to attack with Nicholas Roche of Team Sky right on his wheel followed by Quintana and Louis Meintjes.
Esteban Chaves of Orica GreenEdge came past everyone but Roche, Quintana, Dumoulin and Dan Martin were after him with 1.6kms to go.
Under the flam rouge and and Chaves, Roche and Dumoulin were on the front. Roche put in a big move on a steep climb but Chaves went with Dumoulin just behind him and the Colombian Chaves took the win in 3.57.27 ahead of Dumoulin, Roche and Martin with Chris Froome finishing 25 seconds down.
Chaves now takes over as the new race leader with a five second lead over Tom Dumoulin.
Source: DSG
