Tinkoff-Saxo's Contador finished fourth behind Valverde and Joaquim Rodríguez to concede precious time to his two main Spanish rivals, while Great Britain's Chris Froome saw his seven second gain from yesterday fall away as he now sits 1min 20sec behind the leader in third.

There was very little to separate Contador, Valverde and Rodríguez with just a late sprint seeing the overall leader drop five seconds on his closest rivals.

Niemiec had to battle hard to give Lampre-Merida its second stage win of the Vuelta as he joined an early five-strong breakaway alongside Orica-GreenEdge's Cameron Meyer of Australia, German John Degenkolb of Giant Shimano, Belgian Kristof Vandewalle of Trek Factory Racing and Spaniard Javier Aramendia of Caja Rural.

The pack held a lead of around 10 minutes at one stage in the race before the chasing peloton began reeling them in on a rain-soaked course.

The rain caused turmoil as Movistar began to ratchet up the pace as the peloton embarked on the ascent of the Puerto del Torno with the group falling to 30 riders as it hit the climb's summit.

A testing and wet descent caused struggles across the field with the leading pack's time dropping to around four minutes as they started the final climb.

Meyer took to the front of the leading pack and was matched by only Niemiec as the gradient began to tilt with the pair sharing the work as they raced towards the line.

Alberto Contador retained his lead at the Vuelta a España despite dropping valuable seconds to his main Spanish rivals ©Getty Images



The chasing group began taking shape further down the climb as Contador launched his first attack within the six-kilometre mark.

The move was matched by Valverde and Garmin Sharp's Dan Martin of Ireland, with Froome beginning to lose ground.

With eyes always on the chasing Briton, Contador went again, with Valverde and Rodríguez the only two to match him.

The break had little urgency to it, however, giving the 2013 Tour de France winner hope of closing the gap yet again, as he had many times throughout the course of the 152.2 kilometres stage.

With every surge in pace Froome was losing ground and with three kilometres to go the elastic finally snapped as Contador accelerated with Rodríguez and Valverde once again in tow.

As the road eased, Froome came close once more to regaining contact, however, Rodríguez's late attack and the sprint for the line ended the Sky rider's hopes.

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