Breschel sprints to victory in Lerma

Matti Breschel (Rabobank) won stage 3 at the Vuelta a Burgos, covering 159km between Santo Domingo De Silos and Lerma. The 27-year Dane led through the final corner and held off Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ-BigMat) and Ben Swift (Sky) in the uphill sprint finale for his first victory in Rabobank colours.

Overnight leader Daniel Moreno (Katusha) finished in the field and remains in the leader's jersey. The Spaniard holds a two-second advantage on Sergio Henao (Sky) while Breschel lies in third overall at nine seconds.

"We knew that there were opportunities for Matti on this stage," said Rabobank directeur sportif Erik Dekker. "The last few hundred meters were going uphill and it was nastier than mentioned in the itinerary. That mentioned an ascent rate of 2 percent, but we could establish for ourselves this morning that it was more than 6 percent.

"Matti said that it did help him an awful lot, we knew exactly what was coming. He stayed in control very well. That last turn was not a 90 degree turn, Matti could get through it at full speed and after that it was a piece of cake. A beautiful victory.

"It was his first one with us and his first in two years. He was yearning for this for quite some time and was quite upset that it did not work out on Wednesday and yesterday. But now the spell is broken. On Saturday the stage will be similar. Then we will fully support him again."

The day's early escape formed seven kilometres into the stage and included David López (Movistar), Alessandro Donati (Acqua & Sapone) and José Toribio Alcolea (Andalucia). The trio pushed out their advantage to more than five minutes, but the Katusha-led peloton steadily reduced the gap, ultimately catching them with 20 kilometres remaining. Toribio's stint off the front did not go un-rewarded as he earned the mountains classification jersey after winning two KOMs and placing second on the third.