Australia's Caleb Ewan won the fifth stage of the Vuelta a Espana on Wednesday to clinch his first Grand Tour Stage as Dutch rider Tom Dumoulin became the new race leader.

Ireland's Nicholas Roche and Dan Martin crossed the line in 22nd and 27th place repectively. The result leaves Team Sky's Roche third in the overall classification while Cannondale-Garmin's Martin is nine seconds behind him, 25 seconds off overall leader Tom Dumoulin.

Team ORICA GreenEDGE’s Ewan, competing in his first Tour of Spain, won the 167.3-kilometre route from Rota to Alcala de Guadaira with a sprint finish.

The 21-year-old crossed the line ahead of favourites John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin), who finished second and Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo), who came in third.

Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin), finished two seconds later than Ewan and was handed the race leader’s red jersey.

He leads the general classification with a one second advantage over Colombian (Orica GreenEDGE) Esteban Chaves, who came in eights seconds behind Wednesday's stage winner.

Team Sky rider and 2015 Tour de France winner Chris Froome finished 12th, two seconds behind Ewan's time of three hours, 57 minutes and 28 seconds, and sits seventh overall, 35 seconds behind Dumoulin.

Thursday’s sixth stage is a 200.3-kilometre ride from Cordoba to Sierra de Cazorla.