Astana's Lopez clinches first Grand Tour stage in Vuelta, Froome holds lead
The Astana team rider, nicknamed "Superman" in his home country, crossed the finish line at the end of the 187.5-kilometer (116.5-mile) stage with 5 hours, 5 minutes and 9 seconds on the clock.
In the last fight Team Sky's Froome had to sweat, but he managed to cross the line 14 seconds later alongside Bahrain-Merida's Italian rider Vincenzo Nibali and Team Sunweb's Dutchman Wilco Kelderman.
Stage 11 of the Vuelta ran from the town of Lorca in the southeastern region of Murcia to the Calar Alto Observatory, which is perched high in the Filabres mountain range of the Andalusian province of Almeria.
The stretch brought the pack along semi-mountainous terrain and was capped off with a brutal uphill sprint.
Orica attacked on the climb of Velefique, the first truly challenging one of the 2017 Vuelta, to pave the way for Britain's Simon Yates to lead four other racers on a breakaway that built an advantage of one minute, 30 seconds over the main pack led by Sky.
After the descent, Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale), Yates and Darwin Atapuma were more than two minutes ahead of the field as they started the climb to Calar Alto, with a 5.9 percent gradient.
Though the pack caught the breakaway with 6.5 kilometers to go, none of the General Classification contenders could match the speed of Lopez, who had to withdraw from the 2016 Vuelta following a crash.
"The truth is I'm very happy. It was a very hard stage," Lopez said. "We spend more energy with the rain. I'm very happy because the team has been working very well since the beginning of La Vuelta."
"Our teammates had to work a lot for Fabio (Aru) and I. It's been impressive and in the end we found the good legs. I knew the final a little bit so I was cool-headed and I chose to wait for the very steep last kilometer," the Colombian added.
"I hope to maintain the progression I've had so far. Last year, a crash unfortunately took me out of La Vuelta, but this year I'm feeling a lot of calm and I go step by step," he said.
Froome, eyeing his first Vuelta title, retained the overall lead, sitting a comfortable one minute, 19 seconds ahead of Nibali, who leapfrogged Colombia's Esteban Chaves into second place.
Froome said he was delighted with the result and praised the performance of Lopez.
"I'm very happy with the outcomes from today. It was a very selective day for the GC," Froome said.
"Lopez was the most impressive today with his attack to win the stage, but otherwise I was more concentrated on staying with Nibali seeing that Chaves was already dropped and Alberto (Contador) was on the limit," he added.
Thursday's stage 12, a 160-km run from the southern town of Motril to Antequera, is set to treat the pack to some coastal views along the way.