Jens Keukeleire underlined that he has hit peak condition for his autumn campaign by taking his first ever win in Orica-GreenEdge colours in an uphill finish on the second stage of the Vuelta a Burgos. Anthony Roux (FDJ) dug deep to take 4th while just behind a 2-second gap opened up which allowed the Frenchman to take over the lead from previous leader Simone Ponzi (Astana).

Jens Keukeleire already got close to a win in yesterday's first stage of the Vuelta a Burgos but in the end the Belgian had to settle for 6th, 3 seconds behind stage winner Simone Ponzi. Today's second stage once again featured a short climb to the finish line and the slightly mellower gradient suited the Belgian perfectly.

Having already closed down a number of moves, the Belgian showed immense power when he produced an impressive sprint to open up a huge gap to his competitors. The former Cofidis rider had plenty of time to celebrate his win while behind his rivals struggled to limit their losses.

Only Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r), Dario Cataldo (Sky) and Anthony Roux made it across while the main peloton followed 2 seconds further adrift. Ponzi finished 6th just behind a Benoit Vaugrenard (FDJ) but as he had started the day equal on time with Roux, he had to hand over his leader's jersey to his French rival.

Pre-race favourite Nairo Quintana (Movistar) had been a little disappointed by his performance in yesterday's stage where he lost 12 seconds to Ponzi but the tiny Colombian showed that he still has intentions of winning this race by attacking inside the final kilometre. However, the slopes were not steep enough to suit him well and he was brought back in before Keukeleire launched his powerful sprint.

Roux will take his leader's jersey into tomorrow's third stage which is the most difficult yet. The course is up and down all day and the race finishes with a tough category 3 climb to the line. Once again, it is a day for the puncheurs and if Roux can maintain his high level, the finish should suit him well.

7 riders escape early in the stage

The 157km stage was mostly flat and despite the 2km uncategorized climb to the finish in Clunia was always destined to end in some kind of sprint. Hence, there was no big fight to get into today' early breakaway which had been established after only 3km of racing.

Spanish champion Jesus Herrada (Movistar) led the way and he was joined by Peio Bilbao (Euskaltel), Christian Meier (Orica-GreenEdge), sprint leader Fabricio Ferrari (Caja Rural), Luis Mas (Burgos), Jon Larrinaga (Euskadi) and Unai Iparragirre (Euskadi) to form a septet which was allowed to build up a 4-minute gap until the Astana team of race leader Ponzi started to control the pace.

Battle for points

For a long time, the gap remained stable while up ahead the riders battled for points in the intermediate sprints. Iparragirre denied Ferrari maximum points in the first one but the Uruguayan made sure to cross the second line in first position to comfortably defend his lead in the sprints classification.

Suddenly, Euskaltel decided to up the pace despite the presence of their team rider Bilbao in the lead group and that acceleration brought the gap down to just 1.40. Iparragirre lost contact with the lead group and fell back into the peloton. The Basque team had, however, no intentions of keeping on and so they once again stopped their effort which allowed the gap to grow back up to more than 3 minutes.

Astana up the pace

Astana was now back in control and Paolo Tiralongo, Andrey Zeits and Janez Brajkovic swapped turns on the front of the peloton. With a little more than 30km to go, they decided that it was time to bring back the break and so they upped the pace, thus bringing the gap down to less than 2 minutes.

Cannondale had one of the day's favourites in their ranks as the uphill finish suited Daniele Ratto well and so the Italian team added Federico Canuti to the team of chasers. That was enough to bring the gap down to less than a minute with 16km to go. That was the signal for Mas to go off the front of his own and quickly got a huge gap.

A front duo is created

Herrada had no intentions of giving up and so he bridged across to Mas while behind the remnants of the break was shred to pieces. Larrinaga and Ferrari were the first to get caught, a little later it was also over for Meier and with 9km to go, Bilbao had been caught as the last one.

With 8km to go, Canuti and his teammate Cameron Wurf brought back the lead duo and so it was now all back together. Sky moved to the front and for some time Vasil Kiryienka and Xabier Zandio led the peloton while also making sure that team captain Cataldo was well-placed.

Orica-GreenEdge launch their train

With 2km Orica-GreenEdge launched their train as Allan Davis took control. Under the flamme rouge, it was Mitchell Docker who tried to give Keukeleire the best possible lead-out.

That was when Quintana launched his attack but the Colombian was quickly brought back. Instead, a Vini Fantini rider tried a move but Keukeleire closed it down with Nocentini in his wheel.

A Colombia rider used a short moment of hesitation to make a counter-attack but now Keukeleire found that it was time to show his cards for real. The Belgian put down the hammer and nobody had the strength to even get close to the powerful Belgian who finally showed the talents that allowed him to shine during his first year as a professional in 2010.

Result:

1. Jens Keukeleire 3.37.02

2. Rinaldo Nocentini

3. Dario Cataldo

4. Anthony Roux

5. Benoit Vaugrenard +0.02

6. Simone Ponzi

7. Sergei Chernetskii

8. Mauro Finetto

9. Nicolas Edet

10. Jeffry Romero

General classification:

1. Anthony Roux 6.53.36

2. Simone Ponzi +0.02

3. Sergei Chernetskii

4. Jens Keukeleire +0.03

5. Dario Cataldo

6. Benoit Vaugrenard +0.07

7. Mauro Finetto

8. Mikael Cherel

9. Rinaldo Nocentini +0.08

10. Jeffry Romero +0.10

Points classification:

1. Simone Ponzi 35

2. Jens Keukeleire 35

3. Anthony Roux 28

4. Dario Cataldo 28

5. Rinaldo Nocentini 26

Mountains classification:

1. Anthony Roux 7

2. Simone Ponzi 6

3. Jorge Azanza 6

4. Daniele Ratto 4

5. Francesco Failli 4

Sprints classification:

1 Fabricio Ferrari 17

2. Christian Meier 7

3. Illart Zuazubiskar 6

4. Unai Iparraguirre 3

5. Jorge Azanza 1

Teams classification:

1. FDJ.fr 20.41.20

2. Euskaltel +0.06

3. Caja Rural

4. Vini Fantini +0.14

5. Ag2r +0.21