Contador crashes in finale as Van Genechten wins stage 7

Tinkoff team leader Contador – one of the pre-race favourites – touched wheels with another rider on a tight bend near the finish to fall heavily on his left shoulder and cause a mini pile-up behind.

The Spanish veteran remounted and rolled over the line with torn kit and some nasty road rash some minutes after IAM Cycling's Van Genechten proved the strongest from a select group that came home just ahead of the split field after the rolling 158.5km stage from Maceda to Puebla de Sanabria.

Van Genechten, riding his maiden Grand Tour at the age of 29, held off Italy's Bennati (Tinkoff) and Spain's Valverde (Movistar) for the seventh – but by far the biggest – win of his career. Belgium's Philippe Gilbert (BMC) and France's Kevin Reza (FDJ) completed the top five on another sweltering day in north-west Spain.

Race leader Darwin Atapuma (BMC) and British triple Tour de France champion Chris Froome (Team Sky) were both held up by the incident involving Contador but managed to complete the stage in the main pack.

The three-kilometre rule, which cancels out time deficits incurred from crashes at the business end of non-summit finishes, meant that there were no major changes in the overall standings – although Valverde's bonus seconds for third place saw the Spanish veteran move to within 24 seconds of Atapuma's red jersey.

Froome retains his third place at 32 seconds with Colombian duo Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Esteban Chaves (Orica-BikeExchange) completing the top five at 38 seconds ahead of the first major mountain stage of the race.

An exciting finale to an at-times sedate stage saw Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana) and Simon Clarke (Cannondale-Drapac) lead the race entering the final kilometre before being swept up agonisingly just metres from the finish.

Sanchez and Clarke had been part of a five-man move alongside Luis Angel Mate (Cofidis) and Gianluca Brambilla (Etixx-QuickStep) which formed after Sanchez’s Astana team-mate Dario Cataldo had launched an attack at the start of the third categorised climb of the day some 30km from the finish.

Spaniard Mate, who had been part of an earlier six-man break which formed 10km into the stage before being reeled in by the Astana-led peloton with 40km remaining, led the leaders over the summit of the climb to secure maximum points over all three of the day’s main ascents.

But Mate, Brambilla and Cataldo sat up with the peloton breathing down their necks after the final descent. Sanchez and Clarke pressed on in what looked like an exercise in futility – only to see their lead creep back to 20 seconds with 5km remaining.

A short but sharp ramp in the closing moments of the stage proved a task too much for the escapees – but not before Contador clipped the wheel of a Lotto Soudal rider and hit the deck at speed.

"Someone hit me and that’s why I came down," a glum Contador claimed at the finish, displaying some nasty bloody cuts and abrasions. "My left side feels bad but we’ll see. It will be complicated from now on."

As for Van Genechten, the late bloomer secured his Swiss team’s third Grand Tour stage win of the season: since announcing they will fold at the end of the year, IAM Cycling have notched wins in the Giro d’Italia (Roger Kluge), the Tour de France (Jarlinson Pantano) and now the Vuelta.

“The chances for victory in the Vuelta are very small so you have to fight all the time,” Van Genechten said. “Today was one of my goals and I did my best to be there with the bunch at the end.

“It’s the biggest win of my career. To be on the podium in a Grand Tour was one of my dreams and now I’ve done it.”

The Vuelta continues on Saturday with the 181.5km stage 8 from Villalpando to La Camperona, which concludes with the first major summit finish of the race.