Elia Viviani edged out fellow Italian Giacomo Nizzolo and world champion Peter Sagan in a sprint finish to win stage three of La Vuelta.

Quick-Step Floors rider Viviani displayed his sprinting prowess at Alhaurin de la Torre to claim his first La Vuelta stage win and his 16th of the season.

Team Sky’s Michal Kwiatkowski retained the leader’s red jersey and holds a 14-second lead over Spain’s stage two winner Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), with Sunweb’s Wilco Kelderman third in the general classification.

An early breakaway led by Luis Angel Mate (Cofidis), Pierre Rolland (Education First-Drapac) and Hector Saez (Euskadi-Murias) opened up a four minute and eight seconds lead over the peloton after 34 kilometres.

But Viviani’s Quick-Step Floors team drove the main bunch and with 93km to go the gap was cut to two minutes.

Victor Campenaerts and Jelle Wallays (Lotto-Soudal), Lukas Postlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Alexis Gougeard (Ag2r-La Mondiale) attacked the leading pack with 45km to go and bridged the gap further.

Jordi Simon (Burgos-BH) was unsuccessful with a couple of attacks and after Campenaerts crashed 23km from the finish, Postlberger hit the front on his own.

Austrian Postlberger held a 25 second lead with 15km to go, but was caught by the peloton with 6km left and Viviani emerged strongest in the dash for the line.