Valverde assumes overall lead

Valverde moved away from his rivals on the final kilometre of the climb up Alto Santuario and his rivals had no reply on the mountain top finish.

His effort on the 151km stage from Malaga to Alto Santuario also dragged him to the top of the general classification.

Rabobank's Denis Menchev came in second on the category one climb 10 seconds behind Spain's Valverde with Frank Schleck and Rein Taaramae recording the same time in third.

Stage two

1      Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team      4:02:37       
2     Denis Menchov (Rus) Katusha Team     0:00:10      
3     Rein Taaramae (Est) Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne            
4     Frank Schleck (Lux) RadioShack-Nissan            
5     Sergey Lagutin (Uzb) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team     0:00:13      
6     Igor Anton Hernandez (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi     0:00:15      
7     Matteo Carrara (Ita) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team     0:00:21      
8     Adrian Palomares Villaplana (Spa) Andalucia            
9     Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi     0:00:23      
10     Jerome Coppel (Fra) Saur - Sojasun     0:00:24     

Overall

1      Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Movistar Team      9:11:58       
2     Rein Taaramae (Est) Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne     0:00:03      
3     Jerome Coppel (Fra) Saur - Sojasun     0:00:08      
4     Denis Menchov (Rus) Katusha Team     0:00:14      
5     Sergey Lagutin (Uzb) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team     0:00:15      
6     Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Project 1t4i     0:00:18      
7     Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi     0:00:21      
8     Frank Schleck (Lux) RadioShack-Nissan     0:00:22      
9     Matthias Brandle (Aut) Team NetApp     0:00:23      
10     Haimar Zubeldia Agirre (Spa) RadioShack-Nissan     0:00:26