It was a first day for the sprinters in the 70th Vuelta a España on Monday’s stage 3 and the fast men of the sport didn’t disappoint. A large group arrived at high speed to compete for the win with Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) taking the victory by half a bike length. For Team Katusha it was a day to play it safe and arrive in good position at the finish in Málaga.

"This really wasn’t a stage for us. We didn’t have any problems today but this stage was constantly up and down so it wasn’t easy for anybody. There were narrow roads with long down hills and technical sections that saw the peloton split into several groups on the descents. This created a lot of tension.But the team rode all day to protect Joaquim to keep him in a safe position and we did that," said team director José Azevedo.

With the last man from the day’s 3-man break brought back at 14,5 km to go, there was plenty of time for the teams of the sprinters to control from the front. As the speeds ramped up for the pan flat ride to the line, Peter Sagan launched his sprint from a distance and just held off Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) to take his 4th career Vuelta win.

Third place went to John Degenkolb of Team Giant-Alpecin. There was no change on the overall with stage 2 winner Esteban Chaves (Orica-GreenEdge) still leading by 5-seconds to Tom Dumoulin. Katusha’s Joaquim Rodriguez and Daniel Moreno currently hold fifth and 9th places at 35- and 40-seconds, respectively.

Tuesday’s stage 4 is from Estepona to Vejer de la Frontera at 213,6 km and one of the longest in this year’s race. A bump at the end could prove to be the perfect jumping off point for a rider looking to gain time.