Rate it!

4 votes

Spain's Alejandro Valverde won stage two of the Vuelta ahead of Italians Alessandro Ballan and Davide Rebellin to take the leader's gold jersey.

The Caisse d'Epargne rider attacked on the closing uphill section of the 176km stage from Granada to Jaen to win in convincing fashion two seconds ahead of his rivals.

Victory in the race's first full stage means Valverde, 28, repeated his feat of winning the Tour de France's opening stage back in July - in a similar winding, uphill finish.

A 22-second time bonus over the finish line gave Valverde a 13-second lead in the overall standings ahead of Italians Filippo Pozzato and Daniele Bennati, whose Liquigas team won the race's curtain-raising team time trial on Saturday.

For reasons yet to be explained, the race organisers imposed a last-minute change to the schedule of Sunday's stage, swapping the third category Alto de las Enebras for the Puerto de Huelma, also a third category ascent, and tinkering with the stage's finish in Jaen.

The alterations added a further 9km to the day's travails, which were played out under a cloudless sky and temperatures up to 30 degrees centigrade.

An early four-man breakaway was made up of Spaniards Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel) and Jesus Rosendo (Andalucia), France's Cyril Lemoine (Credit-Agricole) and Russian Mikhail Ignatiev (Tinkoff).

Rosendo beat his fellow escapees to the summit of the Puerto de Huelma after 84km to ensure he will wear the race's first red king of the mountains jersey on Monday's stage three.

The quartet built up a lead of around four minutes before Martinez attacked alone with 50km left to ride. The Spaniard was joined by his compatriot Rosendo before being reeled in by the peloton with just under 20km left to the finish.

In an uncharacteristically anarchic closing segment of the stage, attacks and counter attacks came in right, left and centre before Liquigas, the team of overnight gold jersey Pozzato, took control.

But following an attack in the final kilometre by team-mate Joaquin Rodriguez, Valverde surprised his rivals with a solo jump to the line in the testing closing 200m.

Race favourites Alberto Contador (Astana) and Carlos Sastre (CSC) - the reigning Giro and Tour winners respectively - finished safely in the top 20, two seconds behind their compatriot Valverde.

Monday's third stage is an undulating 168km slog from Jaen to Cordoba.

Felix Lowe / Eurosport