Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing) escaped to a clever victory on stage nine at the Vuelta a Espana while Joaquim Rodriguez extended his race lead.
The pair put in a surprise attack on the final climb of the Alto do Montjuic in Barcelona and combined well to take valuable time on a reduced peloton at the finish.
Bonus seconds saw Rodriguez (Katusha) push his lead out even further at the top of the leaderboard, Team Sky's Chris Froome holding onto second but now staring at a 53-second deficit heading into the rest day.
Paolo Tiralongo (Astana) was best of the rest on the uphill drag to the finish with the lead group featuring a time split of three seconds which Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) found himself on the right side of.
The first win of the season for Gilbert arrived off the back of numerous attacks on the short, sharp final climb. Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank) was the first to launch a move but was quickly brought back as the peloton hit the climb hard.
Contador remains third overall, exactly one minute behind compatriot Rodriguez with Valverde a further seven seconds back.
After the intense fight to make the break on Saturday it was a much more straightforward affair on stage nine with four riders chipping off the front in the opening kilometres.
A lead of 5:20 was all that was afforded to Javier Chacon (Andalucia), Maartijn Maaskant (Garmin-Sharp), Bert-Jan Lindeman (Vacansoleil-DCM) and Mickael Buffaz (Cofidis) during the 196.3km test.
Katusha controlled the pace and it was no surprise to see the escapees swept up on the run-in to Barcelona with 25km to go.
That set the scene for a thrilling fight on the steep ramp of the Montjuic, with Rodriguez again showing his form with an opportunistic move to eke out further time ahead of Wednesday's crucial time trial.
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