The following two stages also ended with a mass sprint, Freire captured the second stage to take hold of the yellow jersey while the world champion Bettini in his revenge against the Freire won the third leg with four hours, eight minutes, 42 seconds. Anyhow, Freire who rides for Rabobank still leads the Vuelta with an overall time of 11:22:54.

However, the Vuelta is about to move into the mountains starting next Tuesday with the 115-mile fourth stage from Langreo to the finish at the Lagos de Covadonga, a special category climb ranked as the most difficult in the race's modern history and it will change the course of the Vuelta since the climbers will start their own battle to conquest the general classification.

The 62th edition of the Tour includes eight mountain stages, eleven flat courses and two time trials. The toughest days will be at the mountains on stage fourth, ninth and tenth to end in a Sky Station and nineteen to finish at the Alto de Abantos, all of them considered as a first category ports.

There are many contenders in the battle to win this year Vuelta a España; Cadel Evans, Dennis Menchov, Sammy Sanchez, Carlos Sastre and Cunego are on the list of favorites; but after a controversial Tour the France is hard to predict who the winner will be. Hopefully no doping scandals will cast shadows over this year’s Tour of Spain.