Moreno secures overall victory

Image 1 of 9

Defending Vuelta Asturias champion Constantino Zaballa (Miche-Guerciotti) won his second stage of this year's edition, claiming victory atop the El Naranco summit finish, but he fell short of unseating second place finisher and overnight race leader Javier Moreno (Caja Rural) of the leader's jersey on the final day of racing.

Charles Wegelius (UnitedHealthcare) finished third on the stage, four seconds off the pace of Zaballa and Moreno. Wegelius, along with teammate Christian Meier, had bridged to the Zaballa and Moreno on the final climb. The Briton made a strong attack with 1km to go in a bid for stage glory, but was caught and passed by Zaballa and Moreno in the finale.

Zaballa started the day 13 seconds behind Moreno on general classification but was unable to drop Moreno on the climb to the finish. Both finished in the same time of 4:29:40 for the mountainous, 176km closing stage.

Latest Videos From

Watch full video here:

When time bonuses were factored in Zaballa's deficit to Moreno was reduced by four seconds leaving the Spaniard nine seconds behind on final general classification. Portugal's Sergio Ferreira (Barbot-Efapel) rounded out the top three overall, finishing 1:03 behind Moreno.

Much of the stage was dominated by an early break comprised of Gorka Izagirre (Euskaltel - Euskadi), Rafael Infantino (EPM - UNE) and Kirill Sveshniskov (Russian Federation).

Rafael Infantino (EPM - UNE) was the big beneficiary of the attack as he scored maximum points on the first six classified climbs of the stage.

The break would be caught by a select group of chasers containing the general classification contenders on the penultimate climb, the El Violeo, 8km from the finish, but Infantino had amassed enough points to move from fourth to first on the mountains classification to claim the final climber's jersey.

Zaballa topped the penultimate climb first and tried to drop Moreno on the descent, but the Caja Rural rider ceded no ground and remained glued to Zaballa on the 3.8km climb through to the finish.