After his many second places, things finally came together for Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) in stage 3 of the Vuelta a Espana when he came out on top in the bunch sprint in Malaga. Being in the perfect position on John Degenkolb’s (Giant-Alpecin) wheel, he came around the German and held off a fast-finishing Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) while Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEDGE) finished safely in the bunch to defend his overall lead.

 

In 2013, Peter Sagan won stage 7 of the Tour de France to continue what looked like an unstoppable string of grand tour stage wins but since then things have changed for the Slovakian. In the rest of that Tour, he failed to claim a singly victory and his travails continued in 2014 and 2015 where he got a reputation as the eternal runner-up.

 

Like last year Sagan has decided to use the Vuelta a Espana to get ready for the World Championships and while the Spanish race offers him a chance to improve his condition, it also give him plenty of opportunities to finally rid himself of that reputation. He just needed two days of real racing to finally break his drought as he came out on top in the first sprint stage of the race.

 

On the third day of the race, he showed his intentions early on as Tinkoff-Saxo took control already on the biggest climb to make things hard for the pure sprinters. All day they stayed in control and made sure that the lone survivor from the early break, Maarten Tjallingii (LottoNL-Jumbo), was caught with 14km to go. At this point, the peloton had hit a small climb and here Jay McCarthy, Pawel Poljanski and Sergio Paulinho rode hard to soften up the legs of the fast finishers.

 

The climb didn’t do much damage though and it was a largely intact peloton that approached the summit where everybody was fighting hard for position. Pavel Brutt was now also working for the Russian team and he didn’t respond when Jerome Cousin (Europcar) accelerated over the top.

 

The Frenchman dangled a few metres ahead of the group for a while but with 7km to go, he was back in the fold. Sky had now taken control and Vasil Kiryienka, Salvatore Puccio and Christian Knees all took huge turns to keep Chris Froome in a good position.

 

Movistar took over as they hit the descent where Jose Joaquin Rojas and Francisco Ventoso led the group down to Malaga at speeds of close to 100kph. The team stayed in control all the sprint teams came to the fore with 3km to go.

 

That’s when Giant-Alpecin hit the front and from there they dominated the finale. Zico Waeytens took the first turn before he left it to Luka Mezgec to lead Koen De Kort and John Degenkolb under the flamme rouge.

 

Tom Van Asbroeck (LottoNL-Jumbo) had won the battle for Degenkolb’s wheel but Sagan made a pretty aggressive move to push him out of that position. Instead, he slotted into fourth himself, followed by Nacer Bouhanni who had gone down in a bad crash earlier in the stage.

 

De Kort did the perfect lead-out for Degenkolb who started his sprint from the front. Sagan accelerated immediately and easily passed the German. Bouhanni came fast in the end but ran out of metres and had to settle for second, with Degenkolb completing the podium.

 

Esteban Chaves finished safely in the bunch and so defended his leader’s jersey and 5-second advantage over Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin). He now faces a very tricky fourth stage which is almost completely flat but has a nasty sting in its tail. With 4km to go, the riders will go up a 1km climb that averages more than 10% before rolling terrain leads to the final 500m which are uphill with ramps of more than 10%.

 

One for the sprinters

After yesterday’s first summit finish, the sprinters were expected to get their first chance in stage 3 which brought the riders over 158.4km from Mijas to Malaga. After a flat start, the riders hit a category 3 climb after just 8km of racing before they descended to Malaga from where they headed into the hills to go up the category 1 Puerto del Leon. A long descent led back to the coast which the riders followed in the final part of the stage before they went up a small uncategorized ascent 10km from the finish and then descended to the flat finale.

 

It was brutally hot day in Spain when the riders gathered for the start. Two riders were absent as Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) was disqualified for holding onto a team car and Marcus Burghardt suffered from a knee injury after going down yesterday.

 

Eight riders get clear

Right from the start of the stage, Sylvain Chavanel (IAM), Maarten Tjallingii (LottoNL-Jumbo), Walter Pedraza (Colombia) and Martin Velits (Etixx-QuickStep) took off and they were quickly joined by Alexis Gougeard (Ag2r) and Omar Fraile (Caja Rural). Natnael Berhane (MTN-Qhubeka) and Ilya Koshevoy (Lampre-Merida) also made the junction, making it a relatively big 8-rider group that was allowed to go clear.

 

At the 9km mark, the gap had gone out to 50 seconds and it was already 2.15 as they went up the first category 3 climb. Orica-GreenEDGE assumed their position on the front of the peloton and when Fraile beat Chavanel and Berhane in the KOM sprint, they had allowed the gap to go out to 3.07.

 

Tiralongo abandons

Orica-GreenEDGE used the easier terrain to bring the gap down 2.28 at the 30km mark while Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) dropped back for mechanical service. He easily got back to the peloton which had again stepped off the gas and allowed the gap to go out to 3.40 after 41km of racing.

 

Paolo Tiralongo (Astana) was forced to abandon the race while the gap continued to grow. It reached 4.20 where is stabilized during the run-in to the Puerto del Leon. Here it started to come down and it was 4.05 when the riders entered the final 95km.

 

Tinkoff-Saxo do some damage

Giant-Alpecin started to work on the front with Tom Stamsnijder but it was Tinkoff-Saxo who decided to do some damage. Jesper Hansen set a fast pace that sent several riders out the back door, with Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEDGE) and Kris Boeckmans (Lotto Soudal) among the riders to lose contact.

 

Meanwhile, Velits was dropped from the break while Tjallingii was also suffering a lot. It was again Fraile who won the KOM sprint, holding off Berhane, Pedraza, Chavanel and Gougeard.

 

Attacks in the front group

Chavanel attacked after the summit but the seven escapees came back together. Moments later, Hansen led the peloton over the top with a delay of 2.30.

 

Tinkoff-Saxo continued to ride fast in the lumpy section after the climb, with Paulinho and Hansen trading pulls. Their fast pace on the tricky roads meant that the peloton split into several groups.

 

Koshevoy is dropped

Chavanel and Gougeard were the next to attack from the main group and they were quickly joined by Fraile. Tjallingii was the next to make the junction while Berhane and Pedraza used a small climb to get back in contention too. However, Koshevoy was brought back by the peloton.

 

The gap was now down to 1.50 with 60km to go and it was still Paulinho and Hansen setting the pace. As there was no great cohesion in the front group, Tjallingii made a move but he was quickly brought back.

 

Bouhanni goes down

With less than 50km to go, the peloton hit the flat roads and headwind and so a regrouping took place. The gap hovered around 1.20 for a while and there was no big stress.

 

That changed with 45km to go when Bouhanni and Daniele Bennati (Tinkoff-Saxo) hit the deck. It took some time for the former to get back on his bike and he had to chase for a long time with two teammates to rejoined the peloton. Tinkoff-Saxo briefly stopped their chase effort but Paulinho soon went back to the front while Hansen had finished his work.

 

The break splits up

Chavanel led Tjallingii and Pedraza across the line in the intermediate sprint before Poljanski started to work with Paulinho in the peloton. There was now a better cooperation in the front group but it ended with 32km to go when Gougeard attacked and only Tjallingii could follow.

 

The chasers quickly sat up and were brought back with 29km to go. At the same time, the front group worked strongly and even though McCarthy, Poljanski and Paulinho were trading pulls, they managed to extend their advantage to 2.05 with 23km to go.

 

The front duo is caught

Paulinho briefly ended his work while the fight for position intensified as they approached the late climb. Whenever the road went uphill, McCarthy upped the pace and he now got some assistance from Thierry Hupond (Giant-Alpecin). As a consequence, the gap was down to just 40 seconds with 17km to go.

 

On a small climb, Gougeard was dropped and Tjallingii battled hard to stay in front. However, it was all in vain and after Hupond had stopped his work, it was MccCarthy and Poljanski who closed the gap 14km from the finish.