Alessandro Petacchi was the winner of the seventh stage of the Vuelta a Espana today, making the most of good work by his Lampre team-mates to come out on top in a sprint finish in Orihuela.
After three of his fellow Lampre riders had set the pace over the final kilometre to put Petacchi in a strong position, the veteran Italian moved to the front with the finishing line in sight and held off the challenges of Mark Cavendish and Juan Jose Haedo to take the 20th stage win of his Vuelta career.
British sprint king Cavendish of HTC-Columbia, who was the overall leader after the opening two days of the Vuelta, was second while Argentinian Haedo of Saxo Bank was third.
German Andreas Stauff (Quick Step) and American Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Transitions), who were both also in the hunt for the stage win, finished in fourth and fifth, respectively.
Those finishes did nothing to affect the overall leaderboard, though, with red jersey holder Philippe Gilbert of Omega Pharma-Lotto, who was 13th today, retaining his 10-second lead over Euskaltel-Euskadi's Igor Anton and Joaquin Rodriguez of Team Katusha.
Nicolas Roche finished back in 51st place and lies 10th overall, 51 seconds off the pace, while Philip Deignan was 153rd and is now 157th in the standings.
For the majority of today's 187.1 kilometre ride from Murcia to Orihuela, which saw temperatures rise to over 40 degrees Celsius in parts, four riders found themselves setting the pace.
Jorge Martin Montenegro, Martin Pedersen, Dominik Roels and Vladimir Isaichev broke away after just two kilometres and they boasted a lead of over 10 minutes after the 25km mark.
The quartet were still five minutes ahead 100km later, but their charge at the front came to an end when they were caught by the chasing pack with five kilometres to go.
After that it was again down to the sprinters, and 36-year-old Petacchi was the successful rider, crossing the line arms outstretched in celebration.
Tomorrow the riders face a 190-kilometre stage eight from Villena to Xorret de Cati.
