Peter Sagan ends drought with stage three win in the Vuelta a Espana

It took 780 days but Tinkoff-Saxo’s Sagan finally ended his winless streak with a powerful bunch sprint victory on the Costa del Sol.

After some expert pace-setting by his Tinkoff-Saxo team-mates, 25-year-old Sagan launched himself from behind Germany’s Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin) before holding off a late surge from Frenchman Bouhanni (Cofidis) at the conclusion of the 158km stage from Mijas.

It was Sagan’s first victory on the Vuelta since 2011 – and his first win in a three-week stage race since the 2013 Tour de France.

“I have to say thank you to my team-mates because they did a very good job. I’m happy to have the victory and it’s a nice day,” said Sagan.

The Slovakian, however, was upset that it was only his team and the Orica-GreenEdge team of Esteban Chaves, the Colombian race leader, and young Australian sprinter Caleb Ewan who worked on the front to nullify the threat of an eight-man break.

“It was just Orica and us who were pulling,” he said. “I’m pleased with myself and my team but I was very p***** for the other teams who didn’t work at all.”

Sagan’s victory saw him move back into the green points jersey while Chaves – the winner of Sunday’s second stage – retained the red leader’s jersey.

There was no change in the overall standings with Chaves maintaining his five-second lead over Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin), with Ireland’s Nico Roche (Team Sky) in third place at 15 seconds.

The third stage of the 80th edition of the Vuelta was marred by the withdrawals of Paolo Tiralongo (Astana) and Marcus Burghardt (BMC) following their heavy crashes on Sunday, while Swiss veteran Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing) also called it a day after struggling with illness and stomach problems.

Shortly after the start the day’s main break formed around veteran Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling). Riding his third Grand Tour of the season and in the hunt for a new contract, Chavanel was joined by Natnael Berhane (MTN-Qhubeka), Omar Fraile (Caja Rural), Walter Pedraza Morales (Colombia), Martin Velits (Etixx-QuickStep), Alexis Gougeard (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Ilia Koshevoy (Lampre-Merida) and Maarten Tjallingii (LottoNL-Jumbo).

The break built up a maximum lead of 4:20 over the peloton, which was being controlled by Giant-Alpecin, Orica-GreenEdge and Tinkoff-Saxo for the most part.

Velits, the race’s first red jersey following BMC’s opening team time trial win on Saturday, was the first of the escapees to be caught after being dropped on the major test of the day, the Cat.1 Puerto del Leon, halfway through the stage.

Despite the presence of overnight polka dot jersey Pedraza in the break, it was 25-year-old Spaniard Fraile of Caja Rural who picked up maximum points over the Cat.3 Alto de Mijas and the Cat.1 Puerto del Leon to ensure he took over control of the king of the mountains competition.

The lead for the escapees was down to just over three minutes over the summit of the second climb with 85km remaining. Chavanel tried his luck on the descent but was soon pegged back by all the escapees except Velits and Koshevoy.

But the last man standing was Dutchman Tjallingii who was eventually swept up with 14km remaining after Gougeard had moments earlier called it a day.

Already suffering a knock following Sunday’s dramatic pile-up, former French national champion Bouhanni crashed on a roundabout with Italy’s Daniele Bennati (Tinkof-Saxo) ahead of the intermediate sprint with 42km remaining.

Bouhanni, who withdrew from the Tour de France in the opening week after one crash too many, was paced back by two Cofidis team-mates in time to contest the final sprint in Malaga.

The 25-year-old showed both form and zip in the bunch sprint but the brilliance of Sagan denied Bouhanni the chance to add to his brace of wins from last year’s Vuelta.

Led out by Giant-Alpecin team-mate Dumoulin, Degenkolb was the first of the ‘Big Three’ sprinters to launch his assault on the finish line. But the Paris-Roubaix and Milan-San Remo champion was unable to secure a tenth career win on the Vuelta, setting instead for third place ahead of Jean-Pierre Drucker (BMC) and Maximiliano Richeze (Lampre-Merida).