Rabon powers to Vuelta a Murcia lead

Rabon finished 33 seconds ahead of Russia's Denis Menchov and 48 seconds ahead of Great Britain's Bradley Wiggins.

The Czech rider now leads Rabobank's Menchov by 38 seconds with Team Sky's Wiggins 53 seconds behind the HTC-Columbia rider on the general classification.

"my performance was pretty similar, but I think the big difference overall is that last year after winning the time trial I got dropped on the mountains the following day," said Rabon who won the same time trial in Murcia in 2009.

"This time we've already had the race's most mountainous stage and I got through fine."

While Rabon won the stage and is now in a strong position to take the overall title, all eyes were on Radioshack's Lance Armstrong who has spent much of the off season trying to improve his time trial performance,

But Armstrong finished eighth on the stage after clocking 26 minutes 28 seconds on the 22km course.

Team Radioshack spokesman Philippe Maertens said the seven-time Tour champion was "not happy but not unhappy either."

Armstrong said on Twitter that the race was a "tough one" while "Rabon smoked the (time trial) - very very impressive."

"Putting serious time into Menchov, Wiggins, and Klodi ain't easy my friends," he continued.

The final stage of the Vuelta a Murcia is a 121,1 kilometre sprint stage to Murcia.

Stage 4: Alhama de Murcia - Alhama de Murcia (ITT) 22km

1 Frantisek Rabon (Cze) Team HTC - Columbia 0:25:10, 2 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 0:00:33, 3 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Team Sky 0:00:48, 4 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Team Radioshack 0:00:52, 5 Patrick Gretsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia 0:01:03, 6 Lieuwe Westra (Ned) Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team 0:01:11, 7 Stef Clement (Ned) Rabobank 0:01:18, 8 Lance Armstrong (USA) Team Radioshack, 9 Josep Jufre (Spa) Astana 0:01:21, 10 David Zabriskie (USA) Garmin - Transitions 0:01:23.

General classification:

1 Frantisek Rabon (Cze) Team HTC - Columbia 13:17:49, 2 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 0:00:38, 3 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Team Sky 0:00:53, 4 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Team Radioshack 0:00:57, 5 Josep Jufre (Spa) Astana 0:01:21, 6 Stef Clement (Ned) Rabobank 0:01:23, 7 Lance Armstrong (USA) Team Radioshack, 8 Pieter Weening (Ned) Rabobank 0:01:41, 9 Luke Roberts (Aus) Team Milram 0:01:42, 10 Tomasz Marczynski (Pol) CCC Polsat Polkowice 0:01:59.