Rodriguez solos in for Katusha

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Joaquin Rodriguez of Katusha soloed across the finish line, taking 14 seconds off of race leader Alejandro Valverde, in the fourth stage of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco. Euskaltel's Samuel Sánchez finished second, just ahead of Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne), who defended his overall lead. Fourth place went to RadioShack's Chris Horner.

Rabobank's Robert Gesink dropped out of third place overall, done in by a crash on the final climb. His team reported that he may have broken a bone in his hand.

Rodriguez had attacked out of the chasing peloton with about 20km to go, passing the remnants of an earlier escape group. He had come into the stage 48 seconds down on the general ranking, dangerous enough for Valverde, Horner and Sánchez to give chase.

"This morning I was sad because I thought I would ride better yesterday than I did," said Rodriguez. "I felt well until the last climb, but in the finale I dropped off. Today I reacted well, I felt good all day and finally, I won. Now I'm happy. Tomorrow we'll ride the ITT and it's a different time trial with a hard climb. My dream it to take the GC podium."

The race lost a number of riders today, with the most notable being Lampre's Damiano Cunego. He is said to be under investigation in the Mantova Italian doping investigation, and the team had announced before the stage that he was suffering from intestinal problems. Cunego started the stage but abandoned about 25 km in.

At about the same time, a 15-rider strong group got away and built up a lead of over four minutes. The speed was so high along the way that the chasing peloton was reduced to around 50 riders. Fifty kilometres into the stage, the escape group had dropped to nine riders, and later was reduced to only David Loosli (Lampre), Michael Albasini (HTC-Columbia) and Amets Txurruka (Euskaltel).

Loosli was the best-placed rider in the escape, at six minutes behind race leader Alejandro Valverde, and with 70km left, he took off from his two companions, who were soon joined by some of their former break-mates

The Swiss rider was unable to hold on to his lead, and on the ascent of the Ventos de Orio, he was joined again by Txurruka, Albasini, Gonzalo Rabunal (Xacobeo Galicia), Sylvain Calzati (Team Sky), Matthias Russ (Milram), Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel), Alexandr Kolobnev (Katusha), Alexander Efimkin (AG2R) and Daniel Navarro (Astana). Their lead over the peloton fell from three to two minutes.

RadioShack, whose Chris Horner was only one second down overall in second place, led the chase, with Alejandro Valverde's Caisse d'Epargne right behind them.

With 20km to go, the lead group finally fell apart on the first time up the category 2 Alto de Aia. Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha) broke from the chasers and caught Kolobnev, Navarro and Efimkin, with Txurruka holding a lead over the four.

The Basque rider crashed, and although he was able to continue, Rodriguez took over the lead, followed by Navarro and Efimkin. Since the Katusha rider was only 48 seconds out of first place overall, race leader Valverde started giving chase, with Horner right on his heels.

The Alto de Aia climb was brutal, with many riders walking up. Rabobank's Robert Gesink had been in third place overall, but the crash on the final climb knocked him out of competition.

Rodriguez pedalled furiously, with Valverde and Horner leading the chase group and hoping to hold on to their leads. With three km to go, Euskaltel took over the chase work, but Rodriguez had a lead of over 30 seconds. Valverde, Samuel Sánchez and Horner took off in pursuit, but they had left it too late, as Rodriguez crossed the finish line in a solo victory. Sánchez led Valverde and Horner across the finish line 14 seconds later.