page_title: 2015 Vuelta a España, Stage 1 to Stage 11
section_title: Stage 3
hierarchical_section_title: 2015 Vuelta a España, Stage 1 to Stage 11 / Stage 3
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Reportage réalisé le mercredi 8 avril à l'occasion du départ du Grand Prix de l'Escaut 2015 à Anvers, Belgique. Nederlands: Vertrek, woensdag 8 april, Scheldeprijs 2015, Antwerpen, België. Depicted person&#58; &#32;Peter Sagan Depicted team: Tinkoff-Saxo
context_page_description: The 2015 Vuelta a España was a three-week Grand Tour cycling race that took place principally in Spain between 22 August and 13 September 2015; two stages also took place partly or wholly in Andorra. The first ten stages took the race from Spain's southern Mediterranean coast to Castellón de la Plana on the eastern coast.
  Stage 1 was a team time trial that took place around the Costa del Sol beach resort of Marbella on 22 August. The day before the stage took place, its route was deemed to be dangerous by the race commissaires; the times did not therefore count for the general classification and several teams rode the stage slowly. The second stage was therefore the first whose times counted; it was the first of nine summit finishes in the Vuelta and was won by Esteban Chaves, who took the leader's red jersey. Stages 3, 4 and 5 were hilly sprint stages, won by Peter Sagan, Alejandro Valverde and Caleb Ewan respectively. Tom Dumoulin took the red jersey after the fifth stage because of a split in the peloton at the finish line.
  The race returned to the mountains on stage 6 with a third-category summit finish. This was again won by Chaves, who therefore regained the race lead.
context_section_description: 24 August 2015 — Mijas to Málaga, 158.4 km (98 mi)
  The third stage of the race was a mixed, 158.4-kilometre (98.4 mi) route from Mijas to Málaga. After 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) of flat roads at the start, there was the third-category Alto de Mijas (6 kilometres (3.7 mi) at 7%). Following a long descent, there were 30 kilometres (19 mi) more flat roads, before the first-category Puerto del León (16 kilometres (9.9 mi) at 5.2%). More flat roads followed as the riders approached Málaga along the coast, though there were more small hills in the final 15 kilometres (9.3 mi). The final kilometres were flat, though there was a tight turn with just over 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) to the finish line.
  A breakaway was formed early into the day, without significant chasing. It included eight riders: Natnael Berhane (MTN-Qhubeka), Sylvain Chavanel (IAM), Omar Fraile (Caja Rural), Walter Pedraza (Colombia), Martin Velits (Etixx-Quick Step), Alexis Gougeard (AG2R La Mondiale), Ilia Koshevoy (Lampre-Merida) and Maarten Tjallingii (LottoNL-Jumbo). They had a three-minute lead over the peloton as they crossed the Alto de Mijas, with Fraile taking the mountains points. The first significant incident of the day was Paolo Tiralongo's abandoning the race; he had failed to recover from the crash on stage 2. Fraile also won the second mountain sprint of the day on the Puerto del León to take the lead of the mountains classification.
  Despite the exposed course of the race, there were no significant winds and the most notable incident was the crash of Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) in the main peloton. Bouhanni clashed wheels with Daniele Bennati (Tinkoff-Saxo) with 44 kilometres (27 mi) to the end of the stage; both returned to the main peloton. Bouhanni was assisted in getting back to the peloton by a "sticky bottle", where his directeur sportif handed him a bottle of water; handing the bottle over took twelve seconds, during which time the team car accelerated, helping Bouhanni in his chase. The incident drew comparisons with the one that had led to Nibali's disqualification the previous day; Bouhanni, however, was fined CHF 100.
  After the intermediate sprint – won by Chavanel – the breakaway broke up, with Tjallingii and Gougeard continuing in the lead; at one point they were 1' 40" ahead of the chasing peloton. The peloton was controlled by Tinkoff-Saxo (riding for Peter Sagan) and Giant-Alpecin (riding for John Degenkolb). The combined pressure of these teams caused Caleb Ewan (Orica–GreenEDGE) to be dropped and the breakaway was caught soon afterwards. Giant-Alpecin led out the sprint, but Sagan and Bouhanni were able to come around Degenkolb and Sagan took the stage victory. The victory was Sagan's first in a Grand Tour in over two years, since stage 7 of the 2013 Tour de France.
caption: Peter Sagan (Tinkoff–Saxo) won his first Grand Tour victory in over two years (photograph from the 2015 Scheldeprijs).
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