Australian Jay Vine secured his second stage win of this year’s Vuelta a Espana on Tuesday as Jonas Vingegaard regained the overall lead.
After Movistar’s Pablo Castrillo had attacked the remaining members of the breakaway on the final climb, he was reeled in by Vine.
The 29-year-old UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider pulled clear of Spaniard Castrillo to win by 35 seconds in the Larra-Belagua ski resort near Spain’s border with France to secure the fourth Vuelta stage win of his career.
Team Visma-Lease a Bike’s Vingegaard finished with a small group of leading contenders just over a minute behind the winner to regain the leader’s red jersey from Torstein Traeen, who was dropped on the final climb.
“Winning is so, so hard, and it’s such an incredible feeling when it happens,” Vine said.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to winning, because it’s just unbelievably hard.”
Vine, who won the king of the mountains classification last year, again leads the race for the polka dot jersey, having also won this year’s first mountain stage on Thursday.
Joao Almeida of UAE Team Emirates-XRG is third in the overall rankings while Great Britain’s Tom Pidcock, who finished fifth on Tuesday, is in fourth place in the general classification.
Stage 11 on Wednesday is a 157.4km medium mountain stage, starting and finishing in Bilbao.