Stage 3

The road

At the start

Nibali in red, another uphill finish

Nicolas Roche's first Grand Tour stage win took the red jersey off Astana's own opening-day leader, and Vincenzo Nibali now heads the race by eight seconds from the Irishman, with Chris Horner and two more RadioShack riders at ten. Today is a hundred and eighty-four kilometres around the rías to the Mirador de Lobeira — third category, short, and on yesterday's evidence quite enough.

How it was won

1. 162 km to go

   Somebody stops paying attention

   Sixty-two kilometres from the line, near the back of a relaxed peloton, about ten riders go down — Sergio Henao and Salvatore Puccio among them. Nobody is badly hurt, but the day stops being relaxed.

2. 237 km to go

   Cancellara on the front, and wind off the sea

   The race turns onto the coast with thirty-seven kilometres left and takes the five leaders. Fabian Cancellara leads the field, and behind him the wind and the aftermath of the crash break it into pieces. Nibali has made sure he is at the front of the right one.

3. 33 km to go

   Flecha goes, Santaromita goes past

   The Mirador de Lobeira is short and it is nasty. Juan Antonio Flecha jumps with 2.8 kilometres left; Ivan Santaromita catches him and goes by, the Italian champion looking, for a moment, like the winner.

4. 4At the line

   Horner, effortlessly

   A forty-one-year-old comes out of the bunch, passes Santaromita as though he were standing still, and rides to the summit alone. The favourites chase furiously and are still three seconds down at the line — enough, with the bonus, to put Chris Horner in red.

The result