French veteran Geoffrey Soupe earned a career highlight by winning today's seventh stage of the Vuelta a Espana ©Getty Images

Thirty-five-year-old French veteran Geoffrey Soupe earned the best victory of his career today as he confounded all the fancied sprinters to win a crash-affected stage seven of the Vuelta a España.

As the lead peloton approached the finish of the 188.8 kilometres flat stage from Utiel to Oliva, Soupe, riding for French Total Energies, accelerated on a corner with 200 metres remaining and went for broke - and no one came past him as he finished in 4hours 56min 29sec.

In his 13-year career he had only two professional wins before today, both stages at the 2.1-ranked La Tropicale Amissa Bongo in Gabon, according to cyclingnews.

"To win a sprint in a Grand Tour is always special and also a surprise," Soupe said.

"I've always wanted to taste victory in a Grand Tour.

"It's an unbelievable, indescribable moment for me.

"I saw that I could launch my sprint from a ways to go after the last corner and I was surprised when nobody from behind me came past.

"It's beautiful for me and the team because normally I didn't have the Vuelta [on my calendar] this year but Alexis Vuillermoz crashed in the Tour de l'Ain and the team decided to take me to the Vuelta.

"I didn't think it was possible to win a stage because it's really fast in the sprints."

The general classification remained the same after its shake-up yesterday, with Soupe’s compatriot Lenny Martinez, riding for Groupama-FDJ, maintaining possession of the red jersey as he kept his overall lead of eight seconds over the stage six winner Sepp Kuss of the United States, riding for Jumbo-Visma.

The latter managed to recover from a crash with around five kilometres left to race before finishing safely in the bunch sprint.

However, Dutch rider Thymen Arensman of Ineos Grenadiers was forced to abandon after his heavy fall.

Soupe was followed home by Venezuela's Orluis Aular of UCI ProTeam Caja Rural–Seguros, Belgium’s Edward Theuns of UCI WorldTeam Lidl–Trek, Sebastian Molano of Colombia and UAE Team Emirates and Australia’s Kaden Groves of UCI WorldTeam Alpecin-Deceuninck, who retained the green jersey.

Spain's Marc Soler of UAE Team Emirates is third in the general classification at 51 seconds back.

An earlier crash saw Britain's Geraint Thomas and Germany's Kim Heiduk of Ineos Grenadiers involved, with Thomas needing treatment before returning to the bunch.

Tomorrow's stage eight is a mountainous 165km route from Denia to Xorret de Cati.