In these moments, a drama plays out in the Volta a Cayalunya. Race leader Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) has been involved in a crash on the descent from an uncategorized climb in the queen stage of this year's edition of the Volta a Catalunya and has been forced to abandon the race.

The crash happened with just under 100 km remaining in today's big mountain stage with 5 categorized climbs and a mountaintop finish. Valverde and his teammate Eros Capecchi both crashed on a small descent which had been marked out as a dangerous point by the race organizers.

With Valverde out of the race, Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) becomes the virtual leader of the race in the same time as Tour champion Bradley Wiggins (Sky). Movistar will now put all their forces behind yesterday's stage winner Nairo Quintana who is 6th overall. He missed the decisive split in stage 1 and trails Rodriguez by 26 seconds.

At the moment, a very strong and dangerous 13 rider break is off the front. Containing Carlos Betancur (Ag2r), Laurens Ten Dam (Blanco), Steven Kruijswijk (Blanco), Ivan Santaromita (BMC), Cristiano Salerno (Cannondale), Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel), Laurent Pichon (FDJ), Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin), Daniel Martin (Garmin), Alberto Losada (Katusha), Yury Trofimov (Katusha), Jurgen Van De Walle (Lotto), Jose Herrada (Movistar), Gianluca Brambilla (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Carlos Verona (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Robert Kiserlovski (Radioshack), Danny Pate (Sky), Nicolas Roche (Saxo-Tinkoff), Rob Ruijgh (Vacansoleil), David Arroyo (Caja Rural), Yoann Bagot (Cofidis) and Rudy Molard (Cofidis), the break has been firmly controlled by the Movistar team. With a moment of uncertainty surrounding Valverde, the gap has been allowed to increase drastically, and the group now enjoys an advantage of more than 4 minutes.

It will now be up to the joined forced of Sky and Katusha to keep the group in check. Daniel Martin is just 26 seconds behind Rodriguez and Wiggins and thus poses a serious threat to their overall aspirations.

Starting at 15.15, you can follow the rest of this drama live on CyclingQuotes.com/live.