Key Takeaways: Vuelta a España Stage 3

Breaking down how a perplexing stage win drought was ended & looking forward to a likely GC shakeup on Stage 4

After sitting patiently deep in the bunch on the run-in to the finish, Wout van Aert turned the tables on Kaden Groves and his Alpecin-Deceuninck leadout by winning a thrilling drag race along the palm tree-lined finishing straight in Castelo Branco with a deft display of race craft, timing, and raw power. In addition to out-foxing Groves en route to a stage victory, his first World win in over a year, Van Aert took the lead in the Points (Green) Jersey classification, extended his lead in the Overall Classification, and impressively completed a podium place sweep with just three stages raced. Behind, the top GC contenders stayed out of trouble and conserved as much energy as possible in anticipation of tomorrow’s brutal summit finish.

Stage Top Five:
1) Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) +0
2) Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +0
3) Jon Aberasturi (Euskaltel-Euskadi) +0
4) Arne Marit (Intermarché-Wanty) +0
5) Pavel Bittner (dsm-firmenich PostNL) +0

Green Jersey Standings:
1) Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike)-98pts
2) Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck)-90pts
3) Luis Ángel Maté (Euskaltel-Euskadi)-35pts

Current GC Top Five:
1) Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) +0
2) Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) +13
3) Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) +15
4) Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) +19
5) Edoardo Affini (Visma-Lease a Bike) +21

Select GC Standings:
7) Primož Roglič +30
9) João Almeida +32
12) Mattias Skjelmose +35
24) Tao Geoghegan Hart +44
25) Daniel Martínez +46
26) Adam Yates +47
29) Enric Mas +52
31) Richard Carapaz +53
50) Sepp Kuss +1’06
70) Mikel Landa +1’18

Stage 3 Race Notebook

2.6km-to-go: Coming into the final few kilometers, Alpecin-Deceuninck is on the front, setting up a leadout for Kaden Groves, while Wout van Aert and his lean Visma leadout hunker behind.

1.8km: Sensing an opportunity, Victor Campenaerts launches a late attack.

1.6km: This attack causes an increase in pace in the peloton behind and essentially buys Van Aert and Visma time since it stretches out the peloton and keeps the pace high without his team needing to set up a leadout with their limited resources.

800m: After reeling in Campenaerts, Alpecin takes the front, with Groves on their wheel, while Van Aert and his lone remaining Visma teammate, Eduardo Affini, sit much further back.

500m: As Intermarché moves forward to set up their own leadout for Arne Marit, Van Aert’s leadout rider, Affini, comes forward to ensure Van Aert isn’t eating wind and can remain in an optimal position.

225m: When Groves’ final teammate goes to the front, Van Aert sits directly on Groves’ wheel, setting up the exact opposite situation as the day before, when Groves was sitting in third wheel behind Van Aert and his leadout man.

175m: With Groves’ leadout man still on the front, Van Aert jumps early and swings around both Groves and his teammate.

125m: Groves reacts and gets on Van Aert’s wheel as they both open up their sprint.

75m: After passing the Alpecin riders, Van Aert smartly positions himself against the barriers, blocking Groves from taking the most direct line to the finish.

50m: This savvy move from Van Aert forces Groves to take the long line around him with just a few moments remaining before the finish.

Finish: Van Aert, unleashing his immense power, is able to hold off Groves on the slightly uphill final few meters to secure a much-needed stage win, while Euskaltel’s Jon Aberasturi gets a surprise third place.

Three Key Takeaways

1) Wout van Aert & Visma’s Leadout Adjustments Paid Off: The Belgian superstar bagged a much-needed and hugely impressive stage win after Kaden Groves and his Alpecin team were pushed into the front-riding role Van Aert and Visma found themselves in the day before. With Van Aert not needing time bonuses to take the leader’s jersey, he could afford to sit back and take risks while Groves and Alpecin, who face more pressure to get results in these sprints due to a lack of GC and mountain options, were forced to take control of the final few hundred meters.

• With teams like Alpecin and Intermarché setting a hard pace on the front and Victor Campenaerts launching a late attack, the pace was much higher, and the peloton more strung out than yesterday’s stage.

  • This created a much cleaner sprint and allowed Van Aert to come from deeper in the field while leveraging his unique talent of sprinting at his best when launching at a high speed.

    • Not being stuck on the front with a fading leadout and decreasing speed while riders launched from behind was the difference between Van Aert’s loss on Stage 2 and win on Stage 3.

      • It was also interesting to see the team calling Attila Valter forward inside the final few kilometers to deploy two riders to the sprint effort versus just Edoardo Affini on Stage 2, which suggests they recognize how much getting a stage win so early in this race will take the pressure off the team for the remainder of the race.

2) This Was a Desperately-Needed Stage Win for Both Van Aert & Visma: Highlighting just how much Van Aert needed this win, his last WorldTour win came in the spring of 2023, and he had only won two races in his last 40 WorldTour top ten finishes. In addition, his Visma team, which racked up seven Grand Tour stage wins and three overall titles in 2023, got just their third Grand Tour stage win of 2024.

• With a crash and subsequent injuries in the spring visibly setting him back at the Tour de France, Van Aert appears to be back to near his best at this Vuelta, considering he has finished 3rd, 2nd, and 1st through three stages. He is currently in the overall and points leader’s jerseys and still has plenty of opportunities to win more stages.

  • Perhaps even more impressive is that he is doing this with fairly minimal team support due to his Visma-Lease a Bike team finding itself already down a rider and dedicating significant resources to their GC campaign.

• Finally seeing an untouched finish line pass under his wheels will give Van Aert much-needed confidence and will likely open the floodgates for future stages at this Vuelta.

  • With this in mind, don’t be surprised if Van Aert runs away with the Green Jersey and heads into the upcoming World Championships with a confidence boost in addition to the fantastic fitness this Vuelta will provide.

3) These Sprint Stages Highlight a Missed Opportunity to Earn Valuable UCI Points & Contest WorldTour Wins: As Van Aert and Kaden Groves trade victories in the sprint stages, behind them, chaos reigns. For example, on today’s stage, the final spot on the stage podium was taken by 35-year-old Jon Aberasturi (along with 95 UCI points) on the second-division Euskaltel-Euskadi team, who has never won a WorldTour race in his career and only had two WorldTour podiums prior to the stage.

• Behind Aberasturi in third, Arjen Livyns, Antonio Jesús Soto, and Carlos Canal, none of whom have a single WorldTour podium finish in their careers, racked up top ten finishes in a Grand Tour sprint stage.

• On Sunday’s Stage 2, Aleksandr Vlasov and Brandon Rivera, neither of whom could even remotely be considered sprinters, finished inside the top ten.

  • This highlights just how wide open (and, frankly, weak) this sprint field is, as the difficult course scared off almost every top sprinter.

    • While top sprinters steering clear makes sense on one level, looking at the UCI points on offer in these sprint stages, it makes me wonder if more teams should have brought bigger, more traditional sprinters just to contest these early stages, attempt to rack up as many points as possible, and potentially get a tough-to-acquire WorldTour win.

Stage 4 Preview

Tomorrow’s stage sees the peloton rapidly and harshly transition from the ease of the opening sprint stages into a difficult summit finish atop Pico Villuerca that will likely shake up the GC and give us an early indication of which riders are real contenders and which lack form.

• While the final climb is officially 14.6 kilometers long at a 6.2% average gradient, this figure obscures the real challenge. After a mild opening 10 kilometers, the gradient sharply increases to 20% for three kilometers before leveling off near the finish line.

  • These details, especially the flattening near the finish line, perfectly suit an in-form Primož Roglič and could catch out riders who traditionally struggle on early summit finishes, like Sepp Kuss and João Almeida.

• This stage would normally provide the perfect profile for an early breakaway to get clear and contest the stage win, but with it being so early in the race and so many riders being theoretically in contention for the GC, it will be tough for a breakaway group of strong climbers to form without being pulled back, which could result in a smaller move going clear later in the stage and not having the time to build up a large enough gap to hold off the fast-closing peloton.

• Prediction: A frantic pace through the early climbs keeps a strong breakaway from getting clear, which sees the race come back together on the final slopes. Primož Roglič outsprints his GC rivals to win the stage, but Brandon McNulty finishes close enough to take the leader’s jersey back from Wout van Aert.

  • For a more in-depth stage prediction, check out my daily OŪTCOMES podcast with Johan Bruyneel.