Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) continued his domination of the Vuelta a Andalusia when he took a convincing win on the short, steep finishing climb on today's first stage of the Spanish race. Having been perfectly led out by his teammate Ion Izagirre, he powered clear to open up a 4-second gap over Bauke Mollema (Belkin) and Davide Rebellin (CCC Polsat) and so extend his overall lead.

Alejandro Valverde has already won the Vuelta a Andalusia twice in a row and the Spaniard seems to be poised to do the treble. After crushing the opposition in yesterday's prologue, he took a convincing win in today's uphill finish in Jaen.

Valverde stayed well-protected by his Movistar teammates for the entire stage and made sure to control the many attacks that were launched throughout the day. He positioned himself well on the wheel of the Sky team when the Brits ramped up the pace on the fast downhill to the bottom of the short, steep 2.4km climb to the finish.

Geraint Thomas set a fierce pace on the ascent to whittle down the front group to just 8 riders, trying to set up his teammate Richie Porte for the win. However, Valverde appeared to be at ease and with 500m to go, he asked his teammate Ion Izagirre to lead him out.

The group exploded to pieces due to the acceleration and when Valverde opened his sprint, he put daylight into his rival. When he raised his arm in celebration at the end of the final 10% ramp, he had opened up a 4-second gap over his nearest rivals, Bauke Mollema, Davide Rebellin, Porte, and Luis Leon Sanchez (Caja Rural).

With the win, Valverde extended his overall lead over Porte who is now in 2nd, to 19 seconds while Sanchez is 3rd, 2 seconds further adrift. He faces his toughest challenge in tomorrow's queen stage. The 197.1km route is mostly flat but ends with a tough category 1 climb to the finish at the Santuario Virgen de la Sierra de Cabra (11.5km, 6.0%) and with his current condition, Valverde is the odds-on favourite to make it three in a row.

A mountainous stage

After the opening prologue, the riders headed directly into the mountains in the first road stage that took them over 186.8km from Velez Malaga to Jaen. Already at the 25.3km, the riders crested the summit from of the first category 1 climb of the race and from there it was up and down all day, with the stage containing no less than 6 categorized climbs. The final of those led directly to the finish line and was 2.4km long with an average gradient of 6.7%.

The roads pointed slightly upwards already from the beginning as the peloton climbed out of the coastal town of Velez Malaga, and several riders were eager to be part of the action in what was a fast start to the stage. After 3km, 12 riders got a slight gap but the peloton was in no mood to let them go.

The break is formed

After 7km, the race was still together but a few moments later the elastic snapped. 11 riders - Stephane Poulhies (Cofidis), Javier Aramendia (Caja Rural), Tom Van Asbroeck (Topsport Vlaanderen), Lukasz Owsian (CCC Polsat), Jaco Venter (MTN Qhubeka), Nico Sijmens (Wanty), David Lozaono (Novo Nordisk), Alexis Guerin (Etixx), Jesus Ezquerra (ActiveJet), Lennard Hofstede (Rabobank) and Benat Txoperena (Euskadi)  - were allowed to take off and when they reached the 10km mark, they were already 1.30 ahead. They started the first climb with a 3.15 gap but Movistar had no intention of letting things get out of control, putting Imanol Erviti and Eros Capecchi on the front as they started to stabilize the gap at around 4 minutes.

Van Asbroeck beat Lozano and Ezquerra in the sprint at the top of the climb where the peloton passed 5 minutes later. The order of the first three was the same on the day's second climb as Movistar now kept the gap stable at around 5 minutes.

Lozano wins the KOM sprint

The escapees managed to extend their gap even further and it reached a maximum of 6.45 at the 92km mark. Erviti and Capecchi now started to ramp up the pace, bringing it down to 5 minutes by the time Lozano beat Van Asbroeck and Ezquerra on the day's third climb.

Movistar now accelerated further and with 66km to go, the gap was down to just 3.40. As the peloton hit an easier section, they slowed down a bit, allowing the advantage to get back up to 4.30.

The break splits up

The finale kicked off with 51km to go when they started to climb the category 2 Puerto de Locubin and the breakaway now started to disintegrate. Poulhies was the first to fall off while Ezquerra was dropped a little later. Erviti and Capecchi brought the gap to 3 minutes but strong work from Guerin near the top managed to stabilize it again.

Van Asbroeck was again the strongest when he beat Lozano at the top while Aramendia tried to make a small attack as they started the descent. He had little success and the group again started to cooperate.

Guerin attacks

As the break hit a flat section, Guerin attacked on his own and he managed to build up a nice gap over his former companions. When he hit the bottom of the next category 2 climb, however, he was passed by Aramendia who took off on his own while the break exploded to pieces behind.

Aramendia managed to stay clear for a little while but he was caught by Owsian, Van Asbroeck and Venter just before the top. Van Asbroeck again sprinted first to the top to make sure that he is the first leader in the mountains classification.

Kessiakoff tries his hand

In the peloton, Fredrik Kessiakoff (Astana) launched an attack and he was briefly joined by Jordi Simon (Ecuador), with the Spaniard falling off after a short while. Kessiakoff managed to stay clear for a good portion of the climb but before the top he was back in the peloton.

Kessiakoff's attack had forced Movistar to ride hard on the climb, with Jose Herrada and Ruben Plaza now doing the pace-setting. At the top, the gap was down to just 1.45 and the break appeared to be doomed.

Mate with an unsuccessful attack

Luis Angel Mate (Cofidis) had tried an attack just before the top but the home rider only managed to stay clear for a few minutes. Plaza and Herrada set a high pace and had the gap down to 1.10 when they started a long descent with 20km to go.

The front quartet were now the only remaining escapees and when they hit am uncategorized climb with 10km to go, Owsian took off on his own. At the same time, Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) attacked from the peloton, bridging across to the chasers but just at the same time, Javier Moreno had led the peloton back to the strong Dane.

Back together

A few moments later, Owsian was also back in the fold while Moreno set a high pace all the way to the top to discourage any attacks. Over the top, Sky moved to the front with Peter Kennaugh and it was Edvald Boasson Hagen who set a fierce pace down the descent.

When they hit the bottom of the final climb, it was the traditional sight of the Sky train riding hard on the front, with Kiryinka and Kennaugh being the first two riders to do the damage. Their teammate Wiggins fell off the pace before Thomas took over as the penultimate rider for the British team.

Thomas puts down the hammer

Thomas put down the hammer until only the Brit, Porte, Valverde, Izagirre, Rebellin, Sanchez, Michele Scarponi (Astana), and Julien Simon (Cofidis) remained in contention. Scarponi got dropped but managed to latch onto the wheel of Mollema and Daniel Navarrp (Cofidis), with the trio making contact just when the climb ramped up inside the final kilometre.

When Thomas finished his work, Izagirre got the nod from Valverde to start his lead-out and even though Mollema, Rebellin and Porte tried their best, they had no answer to Valverde. The Spaniard powered clear to open a 4-second gap at the line, extending his overall lead to a comfortable 19 seconds.