Rodríguez reigns in Burgos

After losing narrowly to Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) on the opening stage of the Vuelta a Burgos, Joaquím Rodríguez (Katusha) made amends on the hilltop finish of El Castillo in Burgos today with an emphatic victory. After his Katusha team set a furious tempo on the 7km finishing circuit, Rodríguez parlayed his explosive uphill kick to a solo victory with teammate Daniel Moreno completing a 1-2 finish three seconds later.

Stage 1 winner and overnight race leader Samuel Sanchez finished in third place, seven seconds behind Rodríguez, and relinquished his position atop general classification. Julien Simon (Saur-Sojasun) finished fourth, two seconds later, followed by Juan Jose Cobo (Geox-TMC).

Rodríguez now leads Sanchez by seven seconds, while David Lopez (Movistar) holds third overall, 17 seconds back.

"I'm very happy about this result," said Rodríguez. "Finally, after several brilliant placings, I was able to take this great win that brought me to first place in general classification. The team today, once again, did an extraordinary job as witnessed by Moreno's second place. We took the race into our hands in the last 10km where all of my teammates did their best to make this happen."

The stage was dominated by an early break of two riders: Etienne Tortelier (Saur-Sojasun) and the irrepressible Kenny De Ketele (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), who was part of the opening stage's lengthy three-man escape which garnered the Belgian the sprint classification lead.

As the Euskaltel-Euskadi-led peloton steadily chipped away at the duo's advantage, the break received new life as a pair of Spaniards, Jordi Simon (Caja Rural) and Carlos Verona (Burgos 2016-Castilla y León), bridged across inside of 30km to go.

The quartet held the peloton at 50 seconds for the next 10 kilometres, but once the tempo ramped up in advance of the 7km finishing circuit the break was doomed. Just as the peloton reeled in the escapees with 13.5km to go, Simon made a last gasp attack but he, too, was brought back with 12km remaining.

FDJ and then Movistar put riders on the front of the peloton, but once the field reached the top of the category 3 El Castillo ascent to the finish line for the first time Katusha was firmly in control. The Russian ProTour squad was determined to wrest the race lead from Samuel Sanchez and with massive work, particularly by Vladimir Karpets, the stage was set for Joaquím Rodríguez to finish off the stage with the one-two punch of stage victory and overall leadership of the Vuelta a Burgos.

On Friday the peloton faces an 11.6km team time trial and race leader Joaquím Rodríguez hopes to defend his jersey. "The course is short, so I don't think there will be huge gaps between teams. Anyway, we have to do our best to keep the general classification leadership."