Slovene rider Matej Mohoric has won stage seven of the Spanish Vuelta by 16 seconds as the 22-year-old collected his first stage win at a grand tour, while there was no change in the general classification.
Chris Froome held on to the red jersey as well as his 11-second lead over nearest challenger Esteban Chaves. The Briton remains in a strong position one week into the 21-day race as he aims to become the first rider in 39 years to win the Vuelta and Tour de France in the same season.
Froome, Chaves and the other general classification contenders finished the race together, 8 minutes and 38 seconds behind Mohoric.
"It was a relatively in control day for us, so another good day to tick off now and start thinking about tomorrow," Froome said on the Team Sky website.
"Tomorrow has a really tough final, there will be ramps of over 18 per cent on the climb before we descend to the finish, it's definitely going to be a GC battle."
Polish rider Pawel Poljanski finished runner-up for the second day in a row, jostling with Jose Rojas and Thomas de Gendt for second place in the final 10 kilometres.
Mohoric surged ahead of the leading group by skilfully attacking on the descent of the Alto del Castillo hill towards the end of the 207km stage from Lliria to Cuenca, the longest stage of the race.
Eritrean rider Merhawi Kudus and US champion Larry Warbasse were forced to abandon the race after crashing 90km from the finish line.
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