Vuelta a Espana: Bennett wins stage 3

Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) claimed victory on stage 3 of the Vuelta a Espana, beating Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo) and Luka Mezgec (Mitchelton-Scott) in a bunch sprint in Alicante.

The Irish champion, who won three stages of the recent BinckBank Tour, collected his 12th win of the season with a convincing sprint in his first Grand Tour of 2019, after missing out on selection for the Giro d'Italia.
He latched onto Theuns' wheel as Trek took over from Sunweb in the home straight, and put clear daylight in between as he sprinted clear in the final 200 metres.

Mezgec made a late charge to overhaul Jon Aberasturi (Caja Rural) and Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Merida), while Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) settled for seventh behind his lead-out man Max Richeze.

Jakobsen's legs were, perhaps, dulled by the category-3 climb that topped out just under 40km from the line and where he was dropped. The Dutchman made it back into the peloton for the finale, but that wasn't the case for Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates), who'd crashed on the opening day and called off his chase just over 10km from home.

Nicolas Roche (Team Sunweb), another Irishman, finished safely in the peloton to retain the overall lead of the race.

"I can't tell you how relieved I am with that. I felt so bad yesterday – I can't tell you how bad my legs were," Bennett said.

"I'm delighted to get it. It means a lot to get another Grand Tour victory, especially in the Irish champion's jersey. I'm very proud to wear it and win in this jersey."

Bennett paid tribute to his teammates but in the end, he had to improvise on the run-in to Alicante. Instead of following his lead-out man, Shane Archibald, he latched onto Trek's lead-out, with John Degenkolb taking over from Sunweb's last man to take Theuns to 200 metres.

"Sunweb closed us when we were coming up, so we lost all our speed," Bennett said. "Then Jempy [Drucker] got out, brought us to speed, and just as Shane wanted to go out on the right, Trek came and he kind of got boxed in again, but I took my momentum to the left and got on Trek.
"I knew it was a very fast finale so I really wanted to kick first. I think Trek just waited that little bit too long, because when you come from behind, it's hard to accelerate back up to that."

How it unfolded

After two stages that produced significant and unexpected developments in the race for the overall title, stage 3 of La Vuelta produced a more straight forward flat stage for the sprinters. Still, the Puerto de Tibi, the second of two categorised climbs on the 188km road from Ibi to Alicante, would complicate matters.

A small, unthreatening breakaway went clear from the gun, containing mountains classification leader Ángel Madrazo, his Burgos-BH teammate Óscar Cabedo, and Euskadi-Murias’ Héctor Sáez. They built a lead of six minutes in the first 50km but the sprinters’ teams soon started assisting Roche’s Sunweb and the gap started to fall.

By the time they reached the first of the two climbs, the Puerto de Biar, with just under 75km to go, the gap was down to three minutes. Madrazo passed the summit first to extend his lead in the KOM jersey.

On the downhill 25km run to the foot of the Puerto de Tibi, the gap continued to tumble, and Madrazo soon left his breakaway companions behind on the climb. Back in the bunch, now close at hand, Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) triggered a flurry of activity with a speculative attack. He drew out the Jumbo-Visma duo of Sepp Kuss and Neilson Powless, along with Movistar’s Marc Soler and Damien Howson from Mitchelton-Scott, but the move didn’t last long.

Up ahead Madrazo gave it everything to survive out front to reach the summit and take more mountains classification points. He was shadowed by Ruben Guerreiro (Katusha-Alpecin), who attacked from the peloton, but held on and immediately sat up once over the top, while Guerreiro pressed on down the descent.

The bunch was close at hand as it came to the summit moments later, but it was ragged, and there were a couple of notable absentees. Gaviria, who’s had an injury-hit season and crashed in the opening-day team time trial, was the first to be dropped, while Jakobsen had to fight to keep within eyesight of the peloton as the gaps opened up. While the Dutchman was able to limit the damage and rejoin on the descent, the damage was worse for Gaviria, who set two teammates to launch a desperate 38-kilometre chase. They hovered around 50 seconds down for much of the run-in, and the plug was pulled with just over 10km to go.

Sergio Higuita (EF Education First) gained three bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint with 20km to go, before Jumbo-Visma and Movistar dominated the run down to the flat final 10km. Once past the safety barrier of the 3km-to-go banner, Sunweb took the reins, protecting Roche but also looking to tee up Bauhaus. Bora came up with a kilometre to go but so did Trek, and Bennett made the call to take Theuns’ wheel. It proved wise, as Sunweb led into the final 300m before Degenkolb started to lead Theuns out. As Bennett said, it was perhaps a little too late, and Bennett was already opening up before Theuns had even started his sprint.

Tuesday’s stage 4 should provide another opportunity for the sprinters. Gaviria and Jakobsen will hope to play more prominent roles, but beating Bennett at this Vuelta looks a tall order.

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