Vernon was the first to launch and moved to the head of affairs in the final few hundred metres, and was strong enough to hang on against some more fancied rivals, with Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) finishing second and Dorian Godon (AG2R-Citroen) third.
“It’s brilliant to win," said Vernon. "We weren’t too far off it on Stage 2 and I knew what I had to do to correct it. I did that today and it worked perfectly."
“It was a chaotic stage. It split at the bonus sprint before the last climb and we missed it, so we had to ride to bring it back. At that point, I thought it was over because the front of the race was miles away but the lads did a great job to bring it back and put me in a great position in the final kilometres. I wouldn’t have won without my teammates.”
Stage 2 winner Kaden Groves (BikeExchange-Jayco) had his team working to bring the race back together throughout the stage, but was isolated in the final kilometres, having to sprint from well back, finishing fifth.
A sedate start to the race saw a break of three riders go clear at the head of the race. Urko Berrade (Equipo Kern Pharma), Joel Nicolau (Caja Rural - Seguros RGA) and Gotzon Martin (Euskaltel - Euskadi) formed the all-Spanish breakaway that shaped the day’s action. Their lead got out to a maximum of five minutes before the sprinters teams began a relaxed chase of the trio.
The pace quickened in potential crosswind areas, but there weren’t any major gaps of note forged and the peloton again settled down into a more measured chase of the break. That resulted in their catch at 20 kilometres to go, with a few small hills and an intermediate sprint with bonus seconds on the line left.
The pace finally resembled a WorldTour race as the peloton approached the second intermediate sprint, with the result all crucial as overnight leader Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) and Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) were locked together on time.
It was Almeida who managed to swing a bonus second in the sprint among the general classification candidates, ensuring by the day’s end that he would move into the race lead.
There were a number of attacks from that point into the finish, without a number of strong sprint teams to take control of the race, but they were all short-lived as the race came into the flat finish.
The final sprint was a chaotic affair, BikeExchange-Jayco attempted to control the race from the front, but it quickly became disjointed after an Euskatel-Euskadi rider's attack drew out Kaden Groves' last man. A rounabout with a kilometre to go saw half the peloton take one side and the other half the opposite, with the coming together on the other side seeing a crash for Ilan van Wilder (QuickStep Alpha Vinyl) near the front.
The resulting swerves to avoid the fallen rider and his bike disrupted the peloton further, and by the end of the race, it was every rider for themselves, with Vernon proving to be well-positioned and the strongest in the final sprint to the line.
