Esteban Chaves wins stage 2 after dramatic summit finish

Chaves surged past an exhausted Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) on the home straight after a punchy finish to the opening road stage of the race – an undulating 159km ride from Alhaurin de la Torre featuring two third category climbs including the final 4.5km ascent with ramps in excess of 20 percent.

Ireland's Nicolas Roche (Team Sky) took third place at nine seconds while compatriot Dan Martin (Cannondale-Garmin) came home for fourth place at 14 seconds.

Colombia's Nairo Quintana (Movistar) lay down an early marker with an attack on the final climb which distanced his rivals for the general classification.

Runner-up in the Tour de France in July, Quintana rode with the leaders before being dropped near the summit after compatriot Chaves joined following a counter attack from the main pack.

Quintana, 25, eventually crossed the line just behind Spain's Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) for sixth place, 26 seconds down.

Britain's Chris Froome, the Tour winner from Team Sky, took seventh place a further four seconds in arrears ahead of Spanish duo Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Daniel Moreno (Katusha).

Italy's Fabio Aru (Astana) completed the top ten at 37 seconds after a particularly gruelling conclusion to the second stage of the race – which more than made up for the lack of drama on Saturday’s neutralised team time trial.

With bonus seconds available for the top three riders of each stage, Chaves holds a five-second lead over Dumoulin in the overall standings with Roche third at 15 seconds.

"I felt that this was my moment to do it for the team. I was in a good position and in the end I did it and I got this jersey," said 25-year-old Chaves.

"We talked among ourselves and how to deal with everyone around us and the main thing to do was to attack these guys so that’s what we did. Roche and Dumoulin were good company and we got there in the end.

"At this point I’ve just got to keep going and be happy about this day and think about tomorrow. The team was incredible, my team-mates did a good job."

After 25km of racing in the province of Malaga in sweltering southern Spain, six riders managed to build up a maximum lead over just over three minutes.

Nelson Oliviera (Lampre-Merida), Davide Villella (Cannondale-Garmin), Walter Pedraza (Team Colombia), Bert Jan Lindeman (LottoNL-Jumbo), José Gonçalves (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Matteo Montaguti (AG2R-La Mondiale) combined well but it was always going to be a tall order to defy the pack with such a key finale on the horizon.

Veteran Colombian Pedraza out-sprinted Villella to take maximum points on the Cat.3 Alto de Ardales with 50km remaining to secure the blue polka dot jersey.

A nasty high-speed pile-up 32km from the finish caught up two thirds of the peloton and brought about the withdrawal of Polish veteran Przemyslaw Niemec (Lampre-Medira) and Australian David Tanner (IAM Cycling).

It was IAM’s second withdrawal of the day following the abandonment of Italian sprinter Matteo Pelucchi after an earlier crash.

One of the many riders caught out was Italian national champion Vincenzo Nibali, who needed to fight back with Astana team-mate Andrey Zeits after being forced to hold on for a bike change.

Nibali managed to catch the peloton with 11km remaining but struggled to hold pace on the final climb, coming home 1:28 down on the stage winner.

Gonçalves was the last of the escapees to be swept up by the Katusha-led peloton, the in-form Portuguese - a stage winner at the recent Volta a Portugal - caught with 10km remaining after taking maximum points at the intermediate sprint at Alora.

Frenchman Cyril Gautier (Europcar) put in the first attack on the final climb but it was Quintana who soon forced a selection alongside Dumoulin, Roche and South African youngster Louis Meintjes (MTN-Qhubeka).

Chaves and Martin attacked from the main pack, and it was Chaves who first bridged the gap just as Quintana had started to fade with 1.5km to go.

Roche rolled the dice with a dig but it was Chaves – whose career was in jeopardy after a severe crash early in the 2013 season – who had the most juice left in the tank.

When Roche began to fade, it was left to time trial specialist Dumoulin to defy logic and deny the pint-sized climber. But Chaves kept his cool to secure the biggest win of his career – and with it the fabled red jersey.