La Vuelta a Espana 2020 Stage 3 - As it happened

1. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma)
2. Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) +5''
3. Richard Carapaz (Ineos) +13''
4. Enric Mas (Movistar) +32''
5. Hugh Carthy (EF Pro Cycling) +38''

And it was Carapaz and Roglic who took second and third, but it might be a photo finish to separate them both.

On the replay, no. It was clearly Roglic ahead of Carapaz. Wout Poels and Aleksandr Vlasov round out the top 5

Carapaz and Roglic are in his wheel.

But the GC men bring him back.

Next it's Vlasov to go over the top. 10% inclines now. Brutal stuff! They have just 300m to go but they're barely moving...

Dan Martin, Enric Mas, Roglic, Grosschartner and Kuss are all prominent. Hugh Carthy is at the back of the group.

And AG2R send a rider in search of the stage win! I think it's Clement Champoussin.

King Kenny Elissonde goes for the stage win. Nobody from the GC is responding just yet.

Chaves keeps on battling but he's got a long way to go yet to regain contact with the front. He is now shown at 38 seconds down! It was much worse than I thought...

Elissonde is caught by Ivan Sosa for Ineos.

Carapaz looks magnificent in third wheel behind Andrey Amador and Ivan Sosa.

Chaves is just going to get back onto the dregs of the peloton.

Dan Martin's team have melted away but he's still there and grinding away.

No cars can get up on these tiny tight roads so he has to take a teammate's ride.

He has Nick Schultz helping him, but that replacement bike is MASSIVE.

The proper climbing has begun. The gradient up to the Laguna Negra gets steeper all the way to the top when it hits double digits.

Lots of riders getting shelled by the peloton.

The break has been caught and Chris Froome – remember him? – is pulling the peloton for his leader, Richard Carapaz.

As the peloton begins to wind in the break.

I think Soler flatted, Erviti leant him his bike, and now Soler has a new bike and is chasing back in the cars. It'll be hard for him to get back to the head of the race at this late point.

Not sure what bike Soler is riding now.

The peloton has begun to climb through this atmospheric misty pine forest now.

The break still have 29 seconds but there's no urgency in the peloton yet. They know they can catch the leaders any time they like.

4k to climby-time!

Our final climb is 8.6km long, so we just have about 12 left before they riders take it on. It's all gradually uphill until then, but the break is really not getting any sort of slack. The gap is 26 seconds.

The bike race has changed direction once more and the wind is now following the peloton as they book it towards our final climb of the day, the cat 1 Laguna Negra de Vinuesa.

There's the small matter of an intermediate sprint before that, just outside the village of Vinuesa.

One of the Burgos lads has been dropped from the break which leaves us with Valentin Ferron and Paul Ourselin (Total Direct Energie), Hector Saez (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Angel Madrazo (Burgos BH).

They have 1'33" on the peloton.

The catch was made, and now there's a new even-more-hopeless-looking escape.

Total Direct Energie have two men in, plus two from Burgos and one from Caja Rural.

Yesterday's winners are hungry for more chaos and they are bashing it on the front now in the hope of splitting things up and creating, dare we say it, echelons.

There's a moody old cloud above the peloton in the distance. It may just miss the race, which the riders will no-doubt be pleased about.

They've passed through Soria and that means they've turned now to head westward, and the wind becomes a cross, rather than headwind. That's a bit of a respite but it could also mean chaos in the bunch and echelons.

The break has just been caught after rather chucking in the towel over the past 10km.

The men out front are suffering in the wind and the rain. Their gap is slowly being chipped away.

I think it's fairly certain now we'll have a GC race for the stage win at the summit of the final climb.

Tosh van der Sande is 3 points in the KOM classification better off than he started the day after winning the Alto de Oncala.

There is so little happening at the moment in La Vuelta I'm inclined to think the DSes of the various teams are actually just watching the Giro go up the Stelvio on the tellies in the team car. Maybe once they've finished in Italia, we'll have some racing?

In the meantime, we have the prospect of crosswinds in about 20km to look forward to.

As the wind bellows down this broad and open 2% climb directly into their faces, the break are getting buffeted about. And there's talk of sleet headed towards the area the race is passing through.

It's beginning to rain heavily too now.

This isn't very Vuelta...

The men in pink are supporting Jumbo-Visma in controlling the break. They are working for their best-placed GC man, Hugh Cathy.

Dan Martin's Israel StartUp Nation are also mob-handed at the front of the peloton, which seems like a waste of energy to me when it's really Jumbo's responsibility to manage this gap.

The gap falls below four minutes for the first time in a while.

An exciting new feature of our live blog is that – if you have a Eurosport Player account – you can view the live feed of the race right here in the live blog page.

You'll have to be logged in with a paid subscription, and then just hit the play button!

The break has now reached the bottom of the Puerto de Oncala, a very long 17km at a very easy 2.6%.

Here's climber supreme and Jumbo-Visma wonder-domestique, Sepp Kuss.

Spain is a vast, vast country and La Vuelta is much younger than the other Grand Tours. That means we're still discovering new climbs every year, with today's finale, to the Laguna Negra de Vinuesa making its debut today.

From the looks of its vital statistics, it could become a regular on the parcours. It starts off benign and ratchets up in difficulty with every passing kilometre. Just 8.6km, its not really long enough to truly explode the race, but the final ramps are 10%, which is more than enough to sting the legs.

We've had very little action thus far in this stage with a small group away with 3-ish minutes of lead. If I were a cycling fan in search of fireworks I might pop over to Felix Lowe's live blog of the Stelvio Giro stage currently in progress... y'all hurry back for the end of the Giro, though...

The gap has stablised at 3'20" so let's have a whip round the various classifications.

Primoz Roglic keeps red after an assured performance in Navarre yesterday. He also owns the points jersey but that'll be worn today by Dan Martin.

Richard Carapaz wears the blue and white spotted jersey of best climber, while Enric Mas is still the best young rider in the race.

A big surprise in the team classification, it's being led by not-Movistar. Jumbo-Visma are ahead by a minute.

Dare Movistar dream of something bigger that the team comp, this year?

Mark Donovan (Sunweb), Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto Soudal), Niki Terpstra (Total Direct Energie), Aritz Bagües (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Willie Smit (Burgos-BH) have worked themselves a 42'' gap. Not quite the super star-powered move I was hoping for, but some firepower in there nonetheless.

And that gap really has gone out fast, after another couple of kilometres it's at 3'14".

These opening minutes will be crucial in determining if it's a breakaway day with a GC battle behind, or yet another stage win for the maillot rojo contenders.

I'm expecting competition to be furious for the break, and for Tim Wellens to try his best to get in the move once more, after a fairly frustrating trip out yesterday.

Speaking of yesterday, if you missed the action, here it is.

Two big names have not started the race today, Thibaut Pinot, and Matej Mohoric. The Frenchman has withdrawn citing the back injury incurred in the opening weekend of the Tour de France, while Mohoric has managed to pick up a compound fracture of the scapula at some point in the first two days of the race.

...and welcome to another gorgeous stage in La Vuelta. We're headed to the Black Lagoon today, which is not, in fact, the 19th instalment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but a lake in the hills north of Vinuesa in the province of Soria.

This area of Spain is vast and green, filled with trees and logging mills and not much else. It is utterly, utterly beautiful – I hope we get so see lots of the countryside as the race makes its way along a tough, all-day uphill course.

Primoz Roglic extended his lead in the general classification on Stage 2 and Chris Froome fell further behind in the standings. Alberto Contador told Eurosport Spain that Froome's performance is a surprise to him, while Wiggins, speaking on The Breakaway, expressed his admiration for Roglic's response to that heart-breaking Tour de France loss.

“It is not normal how we are seeing Froome,” Contador said.

"He has to be thinking a lot of things because he surely considers all the scenarios: Preparing to compete in the Israel team, a possible professional withdrawal in the style of Cavendish, a restructuring of the focus of his calendar... his head must be in chaos right now."

In stark contrast to Froome’s performance was that of general classification leader Primoz Roglic, who took bonus seconds with a second place as he continued an impressive response to missing out on the Tour de France title back in September.

“We did say at the end of the Tour de France that we were quite fearful what the impact of that loss would have on him from a mental point of view,” Wiggins said of Roglic. “And I think it was Sean Kelly who said he should get straight back on it and target the Vuelta.

“I think the way he took the loss at the Tour de France from a sporting point of view just showed his mental strength, and it appeared at that time that he saw it as sport and these things happen. That was reflected in how he rode Liege-Bastogne-Liege and now the Vuelta, he’s just got back to business.

“It’s great to see him back, but the only concern now is can he defend this lead for two-and-a-half weeks?”

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