AVILA, Spain (AFP) - Home hope Javier Pascual Rodriguez won the 18th stage of the Tour of Spain, a 196.6km ride between Bejar and Avila on Thursday, as fellow Spaniard Roberto Heras held his overall lead three days ahead of the race finish.
Rodriguez came out on top after an escape by a group of 10 riders with the breakaway made up of riders without any realistic chance of winning the event on Sunday.
The Kelme rider won a sprint ahead of Colombian Ivan Parra, the last of the break-away group who had accompanied him from the 25km mark.
It was also the fourth stage win in this year's race for the Kelme team and they went to the top of the standings for teams.
The group which held the leaders of the race, including Heras, arrived 1min 24sec behind Rodriguez.
Heras reacted impressively to successive attacks from Francisco Mancebo and Santiago Perez at Navalmoral, the last difficult climb of the day.
Heras holds his 1min 13sec overall advantage on Perez.
The race looks set to be for the third spot on the podium between 23-year-old Alejandro Valverde and experienced time-trial specialist Francisco Mancebo.
Meanwhile, former Tour of Spain champion Aitor Gonzalez pulled out of the race ahead of Thursday's stage along with Kazakhstan's Alexandre Vinokourov and Canada's Michael Barry.
Fasso Bortolo rider Gonzalez, the 2002 champion, had dropped to overall 30th position after losing 28 seconds on Wednesday, and blamed his withdrawal on gastroenteritis.
"I haven't felt good for the past week and can't eat like I want to," said the Spaniard.
Organisers did not give the reason for the withdrawal of T-Mobile rider Vinokourov, who was in 49th position, and US Postal rider Barry, sitting 191th.
Vinokourov, one of the pre-race favourites, had suffered food poisoning early in the race along with four of his teammates.
The 19th stage on Friday is a 142km run between Avila and Collado, with teh race ending on Sunday with a 30km time-trail around Madrid.