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Antón crashes out of Vuelta

Image: Rodriguez: Stage winner

Joaquim Rodríguez won a dramatic 14th stage of the Vuelta a España as race leader Igor Antón crashed out of the race.

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Big shake-up on general classification after late crash

Joaquim Rodríguez (Katusha) won a dramatic 14th stage of the Vuelta a España as race leader Igor Antón (Euskaltel) crashed out of the race. The summit finish up to Peña Cabarga - with the final two kilometres at 18% - always looked like playing a key part of this year's race and so it proved as Rodríguez sprinted past Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) with 800 metres remaining. It was enough to give the Katusha rider the stage victory but Nibali battled on bravely to limit his losses to 20 seconds and he's now the new overall leader. That's because the most decisive moment on the 178km stage from Burgos came with just under 7km rto go when a high-speed crash saw the exit of red jersey holder Antón. He suffered terrible road burns and was unable to complete the stage while it was also a dreadful day for the Caisse d'Epargne team who were also badly caught up in the crash.

Escape bid

There had been no hint of the drama to come when a three-man break - featuring Garmin-Transitions duo David Millar and David Zabriskie along with Niki Terpstra (Milram) - opened up an advantage of nearly 13 minutes. The move had started 35km into the stage when Terpstra attacked to get into the escape group for the second day in succession. The gap was whittled down in the second half of the stage but Terpstra did everything he could to stay out in front and was the last man to be caught with just 2km remaining.