That Jonas Vingegaard remained the overall leader of the Vuelta a España after stage 3's blisteringly-fast uphill finish at Ceres is hardly news in itself, but that the Dane did so by taking third in the sprint just behind unexpected winner David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and leading favourite Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) was certainly much more of a surprise.
The Visma-Lease a Bike leader has stayed in la roja by the bare minimum, with his third place on the stage and consequent time bonus, combined with better placings on stage 1 than Gaudu, enabling him to hold on despite being tied on time with the Frenchman.
But what truly impressed was how Vingegaard showed no hesitation in diving into a very tricky sprint finale in Ceres, culminating in a 180-degree turn to the line with 80 metres to go, when he has much bigger objectives long term.
However, as Vingegaard explained, rather than keeping the jersey or getting a second win in as many days as an objective after his searing victory at Limone Piemonte, his main target was simply to stay out of trouble. Stage 3 was a very fast finish but the uphill finale meant there was no 'three-kilometre-to-go' safety zone for GC contenders to rely on, so instead by keeping ahead, Vingegaard could be sure he would not be caught out.
Vingegaard has now moved into the overall lead of the points competition, too, but he denied that he was trying to follow Tadej Pogačar's example of fighting for bonus seconds as well as for the overall.
"In the final I think it's better to have the objective of going for the sprint because then you stay alert and in the front, rather than thinking that you just need to finish because then you might lose some time," he pointed out.
Nor was he particularly bothered about keeping the leader's jersey for a second straight day, Vingegaard said.
"Not necessarily, I'm happy I'm still in the jersey, I wouldn't just give it away to a GC guy, of course if it was a breakaway with no danger of taking the jersey [long-term] I wouldn't mind it so much. But I wouldn't give it away to a GC guy."
His strategy, in any case, had been to be in the right place at the right time in the final kiloemetre and after some sterling work from his squad on the technical, twisting run-in, he received key support from Matteo Jorgenson in getting through to the front just when it mattered.
After that, though, Vingegaard showed some impressive versatility by ensuring he was right behind Pedersen as his fellow-Dane moved towards the crunch final corner.
"I guess everybody knew you had to be first through that corner to win the stage," Vingegaard said. "Mads took the front, and I kind of thought, I'm going to be second, didn't believe I could get past him.
"But David [Gaudu] saw his chance on the corner and he kind of dive-bombed me and Mads. You needed to get first out of corner and he did a very good job there."
Although a second win in as many days would have been a remarkable achievement for Vingegaard, the trials and tribulations of the team in the build-up to the stage had overshadowed almost everything else.
The robbery of 18 bikes overnight followed the team's successful bounceback on the part of its background staff, working extremely hard to ensure that replacements were ready, dominated the Vuelta's stage 3, although as Vingegaard pointed out, things had not gone well for the team in other ways, either.
"It was pretty bad from the moment we finished the race yesterday [Sunday]" Vingegaard recounted.
"First we had the news that Axel [Zingle, crash victim and teammate -Ed.] was out, it's really unfortunate for himself and the team, we're going to miss him, he's a super strong rider. And also it's bad for himself with the injuries, that's not nice for him.
"Then we woke up to the news that the bikes were gone, luckily they left a few so we could race today. Fortunately, we've got super-good mechanics, they worked their asses off, and just before the start everything was ready. So they did a really good job."
On a personal front, in any case, with the Vuelta's opening leg of the race through Italy is now nearly complete, and apart from the near-miss of Sunday's crash, overall Vingegaard can be more than satisfied with how the race is oing.
He will head back towards Spain - albeit via the finish in France on Tuesday - with the first Vuelta lead of his career, his first WorldTour stage win of 2025 and shows of strength not just on the climbs like at Limone Piemonte, as could have been expected, but also in testing uphill mass sprints like at Ceres.
The next crunch test will be the team time trial on Wednesday, but for now, Vingegaard remains very much in control of the Vuelta, no matter the terrain.
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