Stage 3

The road

At the start

Out of Marbella, straight uphill

Mark Cavendish still has red, twelve seconds clear of six HTC-Columbia teammates, and the road out of Marbella turns upward inside the first ten kilometres. Two first-category ascents follow — the Puerto de León twice over — and Málaga is reached up a ramp that keeps climbing for the last 1,500 metres. It is a day built to take a jersey off a sprinter, and everyone in the race knows it.

How it was won

1. 1150 km to go

   Nine kilometres in, and the red jersey is gone

   The Puerto de Ojén comes almost straight out of Marbella and Mark Cavendish drops out of the back of the race on it, exactly as everyone expected. Sky lose John-Lee Augustyn and Ben Swift before the climb is done, both to food poisoning.

2. 236 km to go

   Martínez alone over the Puerto del León

   The category-one Puerto del León tears the peloton apart in ten per cent gradients and thirty-degree heat, Caisse d'Epargne driving. Serafín Martínez crests it alone at the front of the race, with Moncoutié skipping easily out of the bunch behind him — and a stage, the mountains jersey and the overall lead all apparently in the Spaniard's hands.

3. 31 km to go

   Caught at the flamme rouge

   Martínez takes no risks on a narrow descent with 37 kilometres to run, and it costs him everything. Liquigas bring the field up to him with a kilometre to go and his entire afternoon disappears in about ten seconds.

4. 4At the line

   Gilbert up the ramp into Málaga

   Philippe Gilbert bursts out from under the red kite and powers the ascending finish alone; Joaquim Rodríguez chases and takes second at three seconds, Igor Antón third. Gilbert takes the leader's jersey; Cavendish arrives 142nd, more than twenty-five minutes down.

The result