Wout Poels wins the Queen stage of the Ruta del Sol and takes the race lead

Wout Poels (Team Sky) won the difficult Queen stage of the Ruta del Sol, the Dutchman attacked in the final km and finished just ahead of Luis Leon Sanchez and Tim Wellens

The Queen stage of the Spanish race was 140 kilometres long between Otura and La Guardia de Jaen/Alto de Allanadas.

Nine riders managed to break away from the peloton including Alvaro Cuadros (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Przemyslaw Kasperkiewicz (Delko Marseille), Alexis Gougeard (AG2R La Mondiale), Pascal Eenkhoorn (LottoNL-Jumbo), Diego Rubio (Burgos BH), Aaron Verwilst (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Sho Hatsuyama (Nippo-Vini Fantini), Jeroen Meijers (Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij) and Enrique Sanz (Euskadi) and built an advantage of more than seven minutes over the peloton.

The breakaway started to break up until only Eenkhoorn, Rubio and Gougeard remained. The peloton led by Movistar and Astana worked hard behind them to reduce the gap before the final climb of Alto de Allanadas.

With eight kilometres to go, Eenkhoorn was dropped and three kilometres from the end, Rubio increased the pace and dropped Gougeard.

Behind on the final climb, Astana's Jakob Fuglsang attacked and got a gap until Mikel Landa (Movistar), Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal), Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo), Wout Poels and Chris Froome (Sky) bridged across.

Tim Wellens was the next to attack with one kilometre to go but was caught by the Astana riders and Wout Poels.

Wout Poels put in another attack in the last kilometre and to take the stage victory with Sanchez, Wellens, Landa and Fuglsang finishing in that order behind.

Froome, who the same stage in 2015, finished in 7th position, leeting Poels take victory.

The Dutchman took the lead of the overall classification.

VIDEO: 2018 Ruta Del Sol Stage 2 Final Kilometres

2018 Ruta Del Sol Stage 2 Top 10 

1 Wout Poels (Ned) Team Sky 3:38:04 
2 Luis León Sanchez (Spa) Astana Pro Team 0:00:02 
3 Tim Wellens (Bel) Lotto Soudal   
4 Mikel Landa (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:04 
5 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Astana Pro Team   
6 Marc Soler (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:17 
7 Chris Froome (GBr) Team Sky 0:00:27 
8 Mikel Bizkarra Etxegibel (Spa) Euskadi Basque Country-Murias 0:00:34 
9 Amaro Antunes (Por) CCC Sprandi Polkowice 0:00:38 
10 Jelle Vanendert (Bel) Lotto Soudal  

2018 Ruta Del Sol GC after Stage 2

1 Wout Poels (Ned) Team Sky 8:59:43 
2 Luis León Sanchez (Spa) Astana Pro Team 0:00:02 
3 Tim Wellens (Bel) Lotto Soudal   
4 Mikel Landa (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:04 
5 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Astana Pro Team   
6 Marc Soler (Spa) Movistar Team 0:00:17 
7 Chris Froome (GBr) Team Sky 0:00:27 
8 Mikel Bizkarra Etxegibel (Spa) Euskadi Basque Country-Murias 0:00:34 
9 Amaro Antunes (Por) CCC Sprandi Polkowice 0:00:38 
10 Jelle Vanendert (Bel) Lotto Soudal