Danny van Poppel sprinted to victory on stage 12 of the Vuelta a Espana as Fabio Aru retained the overall lead.
Van Poppel (Trek Factory Racing) beat Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEdge) into second place and Tosh Van Der Sande (Lotto Soudal) into third in Lleida, but only after a frantic chase of the day's breakaway.
The five escapees still led by 40 seconds with 5km remaining and it wasn't until about 350m to go that the last of them was finally caught by desperate sprint teams within the peloton.
Van Poppel's win was the biggest of his career and came despite being forced to chase back on to the main bunch following a puncture with about 12km left.
Aru (Astana) and all the other contenders for overall victory finished in the peloton, which means the Italian remains 27 seconds ahead of second-placed Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) and 30 seconds in front of third-placed Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin).
Van Poppel said: "This was my first chance in this Vuelta. I missed the opportunities in the first week because I was not feeling good and struggled with the heat, and I was a little bit angry that I missed those chances. I knew that today was another chance, and I needed to take responsibility."
The Vuelta continues on Friday with a 178km 13th stage from Catalayud to Tarazona. Follow the action with our live blog from 3.30pm BST.
Stage 12 result
1 Danny van Poppel (Lux) Trek Factory Racing, 4:02:11
2 Daryl Impey (RSA) Orica-GreenEdge, same time
3 Tosh Van Der Sande (Bel) Lotto Soudal, st
4 Nikolas Maes (Bel) Etixx – Quick-Step, st
5 John Degenkolb (Ger) Giant-Alpecin, st
6 Jean-Pierre Drucker (Lux) BMC Racing, st
7 Tom van Asbroeck (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo, st
8 Kristian Sbaragli (Ita) MTN-Qhubeka, st
9 Jose Joaquin Rojas (Esp) Movistar, st
10 Leonardo Duque (Col) Colombia, st
General classification
1 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana, 47:14:30
2 Joaquim Rodriguez (Esp) Katusha, +27
3 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Giant-Alpecin, +30
4 Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo, +1:28
5 Esteban Chaves (Col) Orica-GreenEdge, +1:29
6 Alejandro Valverde (Esp) Movistar, +1:52
7 Daniel Moreno (Esp) Katusha, +1:54
8 Mikel Nieve (Esp) Team Sky, +1:58
9 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, +3:07
10 Louis Meintjes (RSA) MTN-Qhubeka, +4:15
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