Close but no Vuelta cigar for Canberra duo Michael Matthews and Jay Vine

Vine was part of a four-man breakaway that got reeled in near the end of stage 12 of the Vuelta a Espana on Friday morning.

The Alpecin-Fenix rider was able to kick again when the breakaway was caught, but was reeled in by the peloton a few hundred metres later.

"I turned myself inside out, only to be caught within the final 550m. Brutal. Absolutely brutal," Vine posted on Instagram.

"I really thought I had a chance to pull that one-off, but it wasn't to be. I left it all out on the road and that was everything I had."

Matthews was caught out by Denmark's Magnus Cort, who launched an early sprint to put the disappointment of being pipped on the previous stage behind him, just as his Team BikeExchange looked to be taking control of the finish.

EF Education-Nippo's Cort, who had led a breakaway until 200m from the stage 11 finish, sprinted to victory after a gruelling 175km route from Jaen to Cordoba in the heat of southern Spain, with Deceuninck-Quick-Step's Andrea Bagioli second and Matthews third in the race to the line.

"We just got jumped a little bit there in the final, I think it was Magnus. They just timed it better in the sprint there than I did, but all-in-all we did a really good team performance today," Matthews said.

The victory represents a fifth career stage win at the Vuelta for Cort and a second in the 2021 edition.

Race leader Odd Christian Eiking retained the red jersey after finishing in the peloton, who were awarded the same time as the stage winner.

There was no change to the general classification, with Eiking leading Guillaume Martin by 58 seconds and two-time defending champion Primoz Roglic third at 1:56 down. Australian Jack Haig is still sixth, 3:55 behind.

"The team did amazing. They did a great job and today I was able to sit on the back, relax [for] many hours while the breakaway fought it out," Cort said.

"I felt the legs from yesterday, but got over the two climbs and then Jens [Keukeleire] did an amazing job to deliver me for the sprint."

An eight-man breakaway formed early on that saw Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) again crash but he recovered to finish in the main group.

They led until the day's final climb with Maxim van Gils (Lotto Soudal) pushing on in search of a solo victory.

He was swallowed up by the chasing peloton two kilometres from the summit and a group of four - Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo), Vine, Romain Bardet (Team DSM) and Sergio Henao (Qhubeka NextHash) - opened up a gap on the descent.

They were caught with just under one kilometre to the line as Jens Keukeleire moved to the front, teeing up teammate Cort for victory. with AAP.