Simon Yates takes first Grand Tour stage win at Vuelta

Simon Yates has won the first Grand Tour stage of his career, launching a late attack to win today's Stage 6 of the Vuelta at Luintra Ribeiro Sacro.

The Orica-BikeExchange rider attacked with 3.5km left of the 163.2km stage from Monforte de Lemos and won by 20 seconds from Astana's Luis Leon Sanchez.

BMC Racing's Darwin Atapuma retains the race lead.

Yates, whose twin brother Adam won the best young rider's jersey at the Tour de France, where he finished fourth overall, is riding his first Grand Tour since being handed a partially backdated four-month ban earlier this year after testing positive for the anti-asthma drug Terbutaline at Paris-Nice in March.

The relatively short ban was due to the UCI's anti-doping tribunal accepting that Yates's team doctor had failed to secure the necessary therapeutic use exemption for the rider, who is asthmatic.

> Simon Yates "ashamed and embarrassed" at doping ban

Today's victory comes a month to the day after he claimed his first victory as a full-time pro, also in Spain, where he won the Basque race the Prueba Villafranca-Ordiziako Klasika.

> Simon Yates wins in Spain after return from doping ban

The 24-year-old's victory today sees him rise to 10th overall, 1 minute 28 seconds behind Atapuma. Team Sky's Tour de France champion Chris Froome, twice a runner-up at the Vuelta, is third overall, 32 seconds behind the Colombian.

Yates said: ”The team did some great work in the beginning and set things up really well for me. We wanted to go in there and try to make a hard race. There were lots of twists and turns in the finale, but I managed to take my opportunity and I’m very happy with the result.”

”The roads were pretty difficult there at the end but fortunately I timed my attack to perfection, it was a really hot day but it worked out very well for us in the end.”