MADRID, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- Alexander Valverde won the 8th stage of the three-week Vuelta de Espana (Tour of Spain) on Saturday.
Valverde, who started the day in second place, claimed his second stage win of the race, just managing to overtake world champion Peter Sagan in the closing meters with Danny Van Poppel also managing another top-3 finishing.
The 195-kilometer stage from Linares to Almaden may have been described as 'flat' on the Vuelta website, but it had a nasty kick uphill in the closing 1,500 meters and the road narrowed dangerously with around 800 meters to go.
That was enough to rule the majority of the specialist sprinters out of contention, but was a perfect finish for the Spaniard, who is a specialist in 'punchy' uphill finishes.
The day was dominated by a three-man breakaway made up of Tiago Machado (Katusha-Alpecin), Jorge Cubero (Burgos-BH) and Hector Saez (Euskadi-Murias), who were able to open a lead of 12 minutes over the peloton with around 100 kilometers remaining, before slowly being reeled in and neutralized with just 6 kilometers remaining.
They set up a frantic finish with the key teams jockeying for position and in the end Valverde was slightly stronger than Sagan, who perhaps suffered from the efforts of having to rejoin the peloton after puncturing with 60 kilometers remaining.
Rody Mollard retains the overall leader's red jersey, but time bonuses see Valverde move to just 37 seconds of the Frenchman with Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) 48 seconds behind and Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) 51 seconds behind in fourth.
Those standings will change on Sunday with the first mountain top finish after 200 kilometers between Talavera de la Reina and La Covatilla, which will allow climbers such as Yates and Nairo Quintano to show their hand. Enditem
