Australian rider Kaden Groves beat green jersey holder Wout van Aert in an uphill finish to win stage 14 of the Vuelta a Espana, while overall leader Ben O’Connor maintained his advantage over Primoz Roglic.

Belgian Van Aert, who heads the Vuelta points classification from Groves, lost out in the final sprint in the longest stage of the race, a 200.5km mountainous route between Villafranca del Bierzo and Villablino.

Roglic withstood late drama as he suffered a puncture which could have undone much of the work he did in Friday’s stage 13 to reduce O’Connor’s lead.

But team-mate Dani Martinez came to the rescue, swapping bikes with the Slovenian and allowing Roglic to make up time to ensure he stayed one minute 21 seconds behind O’Connor in the general classification.

All the riders in overall contention finished in the peloton, leading to the standings seeing little change.

Sunday’s action involves another mountainous route, with stage 15 being a 143km race from Infiesto to Cuitu Negru.