The Spaniard (Katusha) made up for his near miss on Wednesday with victory on the wall-like climb up to Bera, holding off overnight race-leader Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) to win by a margin of nine seconds and claim the race lead by the same buffer.

Sergio Henao hit out in the final metres but the young Team Sky rider could not quite hold on in the face of seasoned opposition, yet had to be content with a fine third on the day.

With a categorised distance of 430 metres the final climb was short yet maxed out at an eye-watering 18.33% gradient, causing inevitable splits amongst the GC contenders.

Rodriguez takes over the yellow jersey but will be weary that rival Tony Marin – who’s Omega Pharma-Quickstep set the pace on the early slopes - lost just 21 seconds on the stage ahead of the decisive final time trial on Saturday.

Tough finale

As the WorldTour race entered its second half, five escapees failed to gain much more than two minutes in miserable conditions as stage four kicked off.

After a fast start and with Sanchez’s Basque squad controlling the pace the action always looked likely to culminate in a showdown in Ibardin.

Over the Alto de Agina the lead group saw some changes as GreenEDGE team-mates Bernhard Sulzberger and Christian Meier bridged across. With a relatively small gap a few other riders took the opportunity to bridge across to the front ahead of the finale.

Yet sure enough the final escapee was hauled back inside 3km after a fast run-up to the final ascent.

Martin was the first man onto the decisive ramp but attacks were quick to unfurl with Wout Poels (Vacansoleil-DCM) first to dig in, followed by Henao before Rodriguez ultimately took the spoils.