2018 Vuelta a Espana - Stage 3

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Stage three of the 2018 Vuelta saw riders race from Mijas to Alhaurin de la Torre, having them ride 178km over varied terrain with the first 20km being a flat course across the coast. Italian rider, Elia Viviani of Quick-Step Floors took the final sprint to win stage three ahead of Giacomo Nizzolo of Trek-Segafredo, with Peter Sagan of Bora-Hansgrohe in thrid place.

Link to stage three route map

The direct distance between Mijas to Alhaurin is only about 25km, but for this stage riders took the longer way around as they took on a hilly stage into a fast and flat finish, which saw a large number of riders take on the final sprint. Luis Ángel Maté of Cofidis lead a break with five other riders only five kilometers into the stage. He was wearing the mountains classification jersey from stage 2 and looked like he was using this break to add to his points tally from the previous stage. The break away extended their lead out to 4 minutes at one stage but by the second climb of the day the lead had been cut to only 2 minutes. With only 25km left in the stage, their lead had been cut to 20 seconds, and was soon reeled in by the main peleton.

None of the teams were really able to take control of the peleton towards the end of the stage, with a number of sprinters trying to make an early move on the group, but with no success. Elia Viviani managed to get to the front of the sprinters with just under 200m to the finish line. No other rider was able to match Viviani's pace except for Giacomo Nizzolo, but it was too late and this left Viviani to take his very first stage with of the Vuelta.

Overall classification after stage two

Michal Kwiatkowski of Team Sky was able to finish in the main bunch and keep his 14 second lead and the Red Jersey, ahead of Alejandro Valverde.

1. Michal Kwiatkowski(Pol) Team Sky in 9 hours, 10 minutes, 52 seconds
2. Alejandro Valverde(Spa) Movistar Team at 14 seconds
3. Wilco Kelderman(Ned) Team Sunweb at 25 seconds

Tomorrow - Stage 4 Start From Vélez-Málaga

Another tough, hilly stage is ahead of riders for stage 4 of the Vuelta. Riders will start in Vélez-Málaga and ride in the direction of Granada for a summit finish in the Sierra de la Alfaguara. The main climb will cover over 12km with an incline averaging over 5% for the climb.

Link to the stage four route map

The route moves from the start, along the coast then inland, towards the "road of the goats" where riders will hit their first climb, a 18km climb with an average of 5%. Riders will only get a small rest before hitting their second climb of 5.8km. the decent will then flow through the country side into Grenada into the stages final climb of 12.4km. Time bonuses will be up for grabs to the first three riders over the line.

I'll be covering each stage of the Vuelta A Espana, giving a breakdown of each days stage, my previous post's for @cyclefeed were the results of stage one and two for this years Vuelta, so feel free to have a look:
https://steemit.com/cycling/@run.vince.run/2018-vuelta-a-espana-stage-1
https://steemit.com/cycling/@run.vince.run/2018-vuelta-a-espana-stage-2

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Please Note all maps are made by myself using Strava