Team Katusha battled against the clock on Friday’s individual time trial and three riders took spots in the top ten stage results with Russian national ITT champion Anton Vorobyev as the best placed team rider. His time of 22’10” kept him on the podium for much of the day before he finally settled for fifth place. 

"We did another good stage today. Three Katusha riders in the Top-10 in the time trial is a really strong performance. I am happy with the guys, especially with Anton, who was close to the podium and in general did a good race. The day was pretty windy. In the first part of the distance there was a headwind, while in the second part it was a strong tailwind. This was not a perfect situation for riders like Sergei Chernetckii and Tiago Machado because they are light riders, but they managed to do a strong race and to get a good result. Now we’ve moved up some positions in the GC and we are looking forward to tomorrow’s very hard stage. It will be a really tough race at 218 km and a lot of mountains, but we will try to move up more in GC. Of course it will be difficult to catch Geraint Thomas who has proved he is in great shape here and he has a very good advantage, but we will fight," said sports director José Azevedo. 

Teammates Sergei Chernetckii and Tiago Machado joined Vorobyev in the top group, taking ninth and 10th spots at 22’25” and 22’28” respectively. The stage was won by Tony Martin (Etixx – Quick Step) with a time of 21’51”, with Adriano Malori of Movistar on the same time and Geraint Thomas (Sky) in third at 21’54”.

Geraint Thomas retained the race lead, while Sergei Chernetckii moved up to 6th place overall, +1.04 behind the leader. Tiago Machado is 7th, +1.07.

Racing continues in Portugal on Saturday for stage 4. The return to the road brings a long 218 km stage beginning in Tavira and packed with climbs near the end, including the category 2 Alto do Malhão at the final.