Vuelta a Espana: Alejandro Valverde wins as Esteban Chaves keeps lead

Alejandro Valverde climbed to victory on stage four of the Vuelta a Espana as Johan Esteban Chaves retained the overall lead and Chris Froome stayed 40 seconds off the pace.

Valverde (Movistar) produced a late surge on the sharp final climb to the finish in Vejer de la Frontera to beat Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) into second place and Daniel Moreno (Katusha) into third.

Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) finished on the same time in 10th place to stay top of the general classification, five seconds ahead of second-placed Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) and 15 seconds in front of third-placed Nicolas Roche (Team Sky), who was fourth on the day.

Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Froome (Team Sky) also finished on the same time as Valverde to remain 36 seconds and 40 seconds adrift of the race lead respectively, although both dropped in the overall standings, to eighth and ninth.

Valverde, who rose two places to fifth after picking up 10 bonus seconds, told Eurosport: "I knew that in these finishes Sagan is very strong, but as we got to 200m from the finish, I knew it was my victory."

The stage ended with two short but sharp ramps in the final 4km, the second of which led up to the finish line.

Roche led solo going on to the final climb, but Valverde overtook him with a surge just over 100m out and although Sagan followed closely behind, he was unable to pass the Spaniard.

Froome, meanwhile, dropped back down the field on the first climb but later recovered position and finished just behind all of his rivals for overall victory.

Sagan told Eurosport: "I have to be happy with second place because a climb like this is very hard. I did too much work in the first part of the climb and I had to recover a little bit. I was on the wheel of Alejandro Valverde, but in the last metres he pulled away. There was not much more I could have done."

The Vuelta continues on Wednesday with a 167.3km fifth stage from Rota to Alcada de Guadaira. Follow all the action with our live blog from 3pm BST.

Stage four result

1 Alejandro Valverde (Esp) Movistar, 5:07:30

2 Peter Sagan (Svk) Tinkoff-Saxo, same time

3 Daniel Moreno (Esp) Katusha, st

4 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky, st

5 Jose Goncalves (Por) Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, st

6 Joaquim Rodriguez (Esp) Katusha, st

7 Julien Simon (Fra) Cofidis, st

8 Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff-Saxo, st

9 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, st

10 Johan Esteban Chaves (Col) Orica-GreenEdge, st

Selected others

15 Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, st

General classification

1 Johan Esteban Chaves (Col) Orica-GreenEdge, 13:11:31

2 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Giant-Alpecin, +5sec

3 Nicolas Roche (Irl) Team Sky, +15

4 Dan Martin (Irl) Cannondale-Garmin, +24

5 Alejandro Valverde (Esp) Movistar, +28

6 Joaquim Rodriguez (Esp) Katusha, +35

7 Daniel Moreno (Esp) Katusha, +36

8 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, same time

9 Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, +40

10 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana, +47