Astana Pro Team rider Vincenzo Nibali lost the leader's red jersey at the Vuelta a Espana on Saturday.

Nibali began the 166km stage from Jerez de la Frontera to Estepona in red, the color of Spain's famed wine and its national sporting symbol, crossing en masse with the peloton from the Atlantic coast of Iberia to its placid Mediterranean shores. High on a hilltop overlooking the sea, Nibali found himself defending not the 3-second lead he held over 2nd place in General Classification American Chris Horner, but the 8-second lead the Italian enjoyed in front of Irish rider Nicolas Roche. Czech rider Leopold Konig won, with Roche five seconds behind to take the overall lead.

"The leaders all finished together today, in the first real high mountain stage at the Vuelta - Roche attacked in the last 2 km on the wheel of Ivan Basso, and this isolated Vincenzo in a group with Horner, Valverde and Rodriguez. At the end of about 1300m of work Vincenzo and his group came to the top of the climb, and the time gaps started. At the end of the day we are one second behind Horner and still between 10 and 30 seconds ahead of our other serious competitors at the beginning of a long stretch of mountains in the Vuelta," said Astana Pro Team Director Sportif Alexander Shefer to the website.

"We are neither disappointed or relieved at losing the red jersey on stage eight. This is a loo-ooo-ong Vuelta, with plenty of time left out on the road. The lack of the jersey tomorrow is made up for by the change in the calculus of tactics in the days to come, and the one liberating factor it will have on our team's obligation to defend outright against the whole peloton instead of just choosing our time and method of attack," Shefer said.