Vuelta a España 2025 stage 3 preview

• Start time: 14:20 CET
• Finish time: 17:22 CET
• How to watch stage 3 of the Vuelta a España
• Favourites to win the stage: Mads Pedersen, Iván Garcia Cortina, Tom Pidcock

The third and final stage run off completely in Italy is one that could favour the breakaways, given the mid-race category 2 climb and the technical, sinuous nature of the terrain.

However, the stage is only 134.6 kilometres long and the hardest climb far enough from the finish that it could also easily come down to a reduced bunch sprint, depending on how hard Lidl-Trek want to make the stage for Mads Pedersen.

It's a long, gradual climb to the finish in Ceres, with an average gradient of 4% in the final 2.6km.

As we saw on the much longer and only slightly steeper climb to Limone Piemonte on stage 2, there are still plenty of fresh legs left in the peloton.

Fortunately, the weather appears to be better for Monday than the rain that caused a massive crash that took down Jonas Vingegaard and most of his Visma-Lease a Bike team on stage 2.

There is a chance that stage 1 winner Jasper Philipsen could be there to fight for another stage win, but Pedersen is the best bet for an uphill sprint finish.

Climbs

• Issiglio (cat. 3), km. 65.8
• Ceres (cat. 4), km. 134.6

Sprints

• Cuorgné, km. 78.5 - time bonus