Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) has rolled back the clock to his glory days when he regularly hoovered up three or four wins in the first month of the season.
The 41-year-old won Trofeo Pollença-Port d'Andratx (1.1) in Mallorca four weeks ago and was back on the top spot of the podium today when he claimed stage 3 of Gran Camiño (2.1) in Spain.
After 148.4km from Maceda to Luintra - which included the late HC climb of Alto de Moura before the descent into the finish - Valverde arrived at the line in a breakaway group that included his team mate Ivan Sosa and race leader Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech).
Valverde, who has served a doping-related ban during his career, proved much more adept at getting in front on the downhill and twisty route into the finish. He easily took the victory ahead of Woods, with Sosa in 3rd place. Those three had proved best on the final climb after Movistar had set the pace early to shred the select group.
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Woods then lit it up with an attack some 4.6km from the top of the climb and when Sosa and Valverde were the only two able to follow, just the order of the stage podium was left to be decided.
The next man home after the leading trio was Igor Arrieta (Equipo Kern Pharma) who led in a four-man group at 51 seconds. With just one stage remaining - a 15.8km TT into Sarria tomorrow - Woods leads by 10 seconds from Valverde, with Sosa 3rd at 50 seconds.
