Peter Sagan put an end to a two-month drought and rewarded his Tinkoff-Saxo team-mates of their efforts by snatching stage 3 of the Vuelta in a bunch sprint in Malaga. After collecting second places on the Tour de France, the Slovak finally earned the top spot he deserved by outsprinting France's Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) and Germany's John Degenkolb (Giant Alpecin).
Colombia's Esteban Chaves (Orica-Greenedge), the winner of stage 2, retained his overall lead.
The start was given at 13:55 to 193 riders. Marcus Burghardt (BMC), his knee hurt in a crash yesterday, did not start. From the gun, Sylvain Chavanel (IAM), Maarten Tjallinghi (LottoNL-Jumbo), Martin Velits (Etixx-Quick Step) and Walter Pedraza (Colombia) broke clear. Nine kilometers later, they were joined by Alexis Gougeard (ag2r-La Mondiale), Omar Fraile (Caja Rural), Natnael Berhane (MTN-Qhubeka) and Ilia Koshevoy (Lampre-Merida).
At the top of the Alto de Mijas (3rd cat, Km 14), the eight escapees, led by Fraile, left the peloton trailing by three minutes. The Orica-Greenedge team of red jersey holder Esteban Chaves was controlling the chase.
The stage 2 crash continued to take his toll -- Paolo Tiralongo (Astana) was forced out at kilometer 48. Later in the day, Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory) also called it quits because of a stomach bug.
The gap between the eight leaders and the main pack reached a maximum of 4:20 at the foot of Puerto del Leon, the first 1st cat. climb in this Vuelta. In the ascent, the lead had been reduced down 2:55 by the joint efforts of the Tinkoff-Saxo and Giant-Alpecin team-mates of Peter Sagan and John Degenkolb. At the top, Fraile against grabbed the points on offer to take over the polka-dot jersey from Esteban Chaves.
In the descent, the leading group split on the impulse of Sylvain Chavanel but only Velits and Koshevoy were definitely dropped.
The gap settled at 1:15 with 50 km to go and was the same at the intermediate sprint of Torre del Mar, won by Chavanel. Shortly before it, Bouhanni, already hurt in the stage 2 crash, went down with Daniele Bennati. But they were both unhurt.
The 30-km mark spurred Tjallingii and Gougeard into action as their breakaway companions were gradually reined in by the relentless efforts of the Tinkoff-Saxo train. Both good time-trial specialists, they took the gap to 1:40 with 20 km to go but were pulled back six kilometers further down the road after Giant-Alpecin shared the chasing duties.
A surge by Canada's Antoine Duchesne 9 km from the line was the only vain attempt to avoid a bunch sprint. It was launched in the last kilometer by Giant-Alpecin, who seemed to set-up Degenkolb ideally. But the German, who started too early, was quickly overtaken by Sagan, who powered his way to the line with Bouhanni in his wake.
