Daniel Teklehaimanot put African cycling on show when he mixed it up with the escapees in today's hard mountain stage of the Vuelta a Espana. Despite coming away empty-handed, the Eritrean was pleased with his performance.

The 9th stage of the Vuelta a Espana saw a real shake up in the GC as the race finished on the cat 1 climb up to Aramon Valdelinares. Winner Anacona (Lampre-Merida) would take out the stage win after being 1 of 31 riders in the break of the day. Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) was 2nd and Damiano Cunego (Lampre-Merida) took 3rd, after also surviving from the day's break.

Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung had a successful day after placing 2 riders in the stage's big break. Jay Thomson and Daniel Teklehaimanot both had the awareness and strength early on in the stage to go clear. The large group would get close on 8 minutes before they lined up the 3 categorised climbs over the final 80km and at the same time the heavens above opened and the pouring rain would not stop until after all the riders had completed the stage.

The attacks came from the break the minute the road pointed upwards with the weaker riders then getting dropped almost immediately. Teklehaimanot would hold fast and make it to the foot of the final 10km cat 1 climb with the front runners. Anacona would ride away from everyone to the victory while the rest of the break would try to hold off the charging peloton of GC favourites. Teklehaimanot was reeled in with 1.2km to go. In the end Teklehaimanot would finish in 31st. GC rider, Sergio Pardilla had a tough day in the rain and lost some time. Pardilla now sits in 20th position overall.

"Yeah today I made the big break with Jay which was good," Teklehaimanot said. "Jay really helped me a lot in the break while I tried to save my legs. We made it to the final climb in front still and then I tried to follow the front guys to maybe get a top 10 result. It was very difficult though in the rain and the other riders were very strong. I am happy with my ride today."