Valverde victorious atop Alto del Santuario

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Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) soloed to victory in stage 2 of the Vuelta a Andalucia as he rode away from his rivals in the final kilometre of the mountain finish atop the category 1 Alto del Santuario.

Denis Menchov (Rabobank) finished second on the stage, 10 seconds behind the Spaniard, with Rein Taaramae (Cofidis) and Frank Schleck (RadioShack-Nissan) finishing in the same time as Menchov in third and fourth respectively.

Not only did Valverde win the stage, but he took over the leader's jersey from Patrick Gretsch (Project 1t4i) who struggled on a parcours featuring four categorised climbs culminating with a mountain finish. Taaramae moves into second overall, three seconds down on Valverde, while Jerome Coppel (Saur-Sojasun) jumps into third on general classification, eight seconds back.

"I'm tremendously happy and I want to thank all the team, because they were phenomenal from start to finish of the stage," said Valverde. "To tell the truth we didn't plan to race with the leadership in mind, we were just going for the stage victory, because the GC was complicated due to the short climb and the gaps by some of our rivals on the overall.

"But I felt super strong, and with 400m to go I didn't hesitate and went full steam into a steep slope. I didn't look back until the finish, and though I wasn't thinking of it, we found another prize with the leader's jersey. Now there are two hard stages, it's going to be difficult, but we already took home a win and everything coming after that will be a bonus."

Buffaz bolts early in queen stage

Stage 2 of the Vuelta a Andalucia, covering a mountainous 150.7km between Málaga and Alto del Santuario, was dominated by a solo breakaway via Mickaël Buffaz (Cofidis). The 32-year-old Frenchman attacked 15km into the stage and rode to a maximum advantage slightly over six minutes on the peloton. Jesús Rosendo (Andalucia) launched a determined solo chase of Buffaz but the Spaniard was never able to make contact and was absorbed by the field after 55 kilometres.

Rabobank and Movistar took control of the peloton and steadily chipped away at the Frenchman's lead. With 50 kilometres remaining Buffaz's advantage stood at four minutes and with 10 kilometres to go, five kilometres from the beginning of the finishing ascent, Buffaz's lead had dropped inside of one minute. At the base of the climb he still held a 40-second margin over the field.

With an average gradient of 6.3 percent, and sectors between 10 and 18 percent in the final kilometre, the odds were stacked against Buffaz and he soon succumbed to the chase effort as the road pitched upwards.

Three kilometres from the finish Aitor Galdos and David Lelay (Caja Rural), Beñat Intxausti (Movistar) and Simon Spilak (Katusha) launched an attack but weren't allowed much breathing room at the head of the race. Galdos was dropped, but the remaining trio still held a slight lead inside of two kilometres to the finish.

Valverde was laying in wait, however, and after the lead trio were brought back with 1.5km remaining, the Spaniard pounced inside the final kilometre. His general classification rivals had no answer to the Spaniard's attack as powered to victory and the overall lead.