John Degenkolb continued his momentum at the Vuelta a Espana after sprinting to a second victory on stage five.
The German (Argos-Shimano) timed his kick well to narrowly edge out Daniele Bennati (RadioShack-Nissan) on the line in Logrono to claim consecutive sprint wins.
Gianni Meersman (Lotto-Belisol) took third after the fast men duked it out inside the final kilometre on the Spanish streets.
Eight laps of a 21km circuit always looked destined to end in a bunch sprint and saw a huge fight for positioning inside the final 30 kilometres.
The sprint played into the hands of overnight leader Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) who was able to finish safely, maintaining his one-second lead over Britain's Chris Froome (Team Sky).
The riders had 168 kilometres ahead of them on a day which looked like a much more straightforward prospect following two tough uphill finishes.
One man who wouldn't have an easy day was Javier Chacon (Andalucia), the Spaniard plugging away solo to build up a lead touching on 12 minutes before being gradually dragged back by the bunch.
Two intermediate sprint at the finish line broke up the action, with Ben Swift (Team Sky) in the mix to take two points at the first time of asking. Unfortunately the Brit was not able to back this up in the final sprint as he sat up to finish 19th.
The peloton were headed up by the red of Katusha after Rodriguez had moved into the race lead on Tuesday, with more teams joining in on the front as the end neared, the bunch holding Chacon at arm's length before finally putting him out of his misery with 28km to go.
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