Italian rider Daniele Ratto broke away to seal the 14th stage of the Tour of Spain in awful weather conditions on Saturday as his compatriot Vincenzo Nibali extended his lead in the overall classification.
Cannondale's Ratto led from start to finish on the 155.7km ride from Baga to Andorra as he was part of an early five-man breakaway group and then took to the front on his own with over 40km to go to finish ahead of Astana's Nibali and American Christopher Horner.
RadioShack's Horner and Nibali were the big winners in the overall race standings as the American moved ahead of Ireland's Nicholas Roche and Spaniard Alejandro Valverde into second place while Nibali extended his lead to 50 seconds.
"I think we have taken a step forward today, but we need to keep paying attention to Horner who had a great stage today," Nibali said.
"In the end I managed to get on his wheel because he couldn't do any more, but there are still important stages to come."
Having been dropped with over 20km to go, Movistar's Valverde, the 2009 Vuelta winner, fought back bravely on the final climb to the finish line to lose just 50 seconds and remain in third place, 1min 42secs behind Nibali.
"It was terrible, I felt very bad and we all were very cold," said a shattered Valverde at the finish line.
However, it was a disastrous day for Roche as he dropped to sixth, more than four minutes off the lead, after finishing 3mins 29secs behind Nibali, the 2010 champion.
Heavy rain and freezing conditions forced Ratto's teammate Ivan Basso and Spaniard Luis Leon Sanchez of Belkin to abandon the race due to hypothermia.
Sanchez had even been part of the early breakaway group that built up a lead of over eight minutes before the worst of the rain arrived, however after suffering a heavy fall on the descent from Envalira, he and Basso were forced to pull out as the temperatures plummeted.
Ratto admitted it was strange that he, being a sprinter, won a mountain stage.
"The descent with the rain benefited me, I tried to go out from the front and it all went well."
With conditions hindering the chasing peloton, Ratto took advantage to break away on his own and his lead was never seriously troubled, although he lost nearly three minutes on Nibali and Horner as he struggled up the climb to the finish.
