Today the public transport gods smiled upon me and I was able to get to the finish in Málaga with no problem. Hizzah!
Here's the gist of the stage in 50 words or less: an inevitably doomed break was caught in time for the sprint teams to establish their lead out trains as the peloton thundered towards the line.
Coming in to the finishing straight, John Degenkolb had one teammate pulling for him while Peter Sagan sat on his wheel and Nacer Bouhanni on Sagan's.
The Giant rider peeled off and while Degenkolb accelerated, Sagan breezed by him, pulling Bouhanni. The Slovakian champion, a perpetual bridesmaid of late with a string of second place finishes at the Tour de France, threw his bike at the line, though he'd have taken the stage ahead of Bouhanni even if he hadn't.
Niki Terpstra.
The peloton rolled in together.
Luka Mezgec.
Dom Rollin.
Long shadows from Larry Warbasse and Jens Keukeleire.
Sylvain Chavanel.
A glance over the shoulder from Geoffrey Soupe.
A solo Matt Hayman.
Javier Moreno.
Simon Gerrans.
Matej Mohoric and Ben King.
Alex Howes.
Sagan, a bridesmaid no more.
Sharing the spoils of his victory.
Perhaps she'd have preferred her champagne in a glass.
Another day in the leader's jersey for the diminutive Colombian climber, Esteban Chaves. Note that he is in fact standing on a higher step than the podium hostesses.
Omar Fraile claimed the KOM jersey.
Two more trips to the podium for Chaves to collect the green jersey…
…and the white jersey, both of which he will loan out tomorrow.
For his work in the break, Fraile received the combativity prize.
Salvatore Puccio, Mikel Nieve, and Christian Knees represented Sky in the best team competition.
Expect a similar scenario to play out tomorrow in stage 4, another day for the sprinters to challenge each other.
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