A rare day for the sprinters to shine at the Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco was seized upon by Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEDGE).

‘Bing’ profited from a superb lead-out by team-mate Simon Gerrans to earn his second victory of the season, and first at WorldTour level.

Ben Swift (Team Sky), devoid of a lead-out, was unable to keep up with the Aussie sprinter’s big kick, with Kevin Reza (Team Europcar) and Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) denying him what would have been a second consecutive top three spot.

While Swift was ruing a missed chance in the sprint however, team-mate Pete Kennaugh was suffering – rolling in alone, some 12 minutes behind the leaders, and admitting afterwards he had felt bad.

Read our five observations from stage three over the following pages, and add your own in the RCUK Forum.