Alejandro Valverde (Team Movistar) wins stage 8 vuelta a espana

Alejandro Valverde  (Team Movistar) out sprints world road race champion Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe)

to win his second stage victory on Saturday in Almadén, Vuelta a Espana.

Danny van Poppel, whose LottoNL-Jumbo team had dominated the tricky final kilometre - which also included a near-180-degree switchback on a roundabout - finished a more distant third.

How stage 8 unfolded

The 195km stage from Linares to Almadén was one of the flattest of the whole Vuelta, with just one categorized climb in the form of the Cat-3 Alto de Españares. However, the heat - nearing 40 degrees - combined with the distance to make it another tough day in the saddle, made all the more complicated by the finale, which included gradients of four per cent that started biting with two kilometres to go.

A breakaway formed after just a few kilometres, containing Thiago Machado (Katusha-Alpecin), Jorge Cubero (Burgos-BH), and Hector Saez (Euskadi-Murias). With just three representatives, it never posed much of a threat to the peloton, and the gap was allowed to yawn out to more than 12 minutes.

Top Ten General Classification Standings

1 Rudy Molard (France)Groupama-FDJ 31:20:34,
2, Alejandro Valverde (Spain) Movistar Team 00:00:37,
3, Emanuel Buchmann (Germany) Bora-Hansgrohe 00:00:48,
4, Simon Yates (GBr) Mitchelton-Scott 00:00:51,
5, Tony Gallopin (France) AG2R La Mondiale 00:00:59,
6, Michal Kwiatkowski (Poland) Team Sky 00:01:06,
7, Ion Izagirre (Spain) Bahrain-Merida 00:01:11,
8, Nairo Quintana (Colombia) Movistar Team 00:01:14,
9, Steven Kruijswijk (Netherlands) LottoNL-Jumbo 00:01:18,
10, Enric Mas (Spain) Quick-Step Floors 00:01:23