LA MOLINA, Spain — Ireland's Dan Martin gave his Belgian team Etixx-Quickstep a boost Wednesday when beating off a bunch of climb specialists to a snow-capped summit win on stage three of the Tour of Catalonia.
The victory also gives Martin the overall lead after he attacked 500m from home after Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana had first tried to shake off a group of around 30 who led the race up the fourth climb of the day.
At the 1725m high Molina ski station the 29-year-old Martin dug deep to hold off Contador of Tinkoff, two seconds adrift in second, and up-and-coming French climber Romain Bardet of AG2R in third.
Tejay Van Garderen and Richie Porte of the American BMC team were fourth and fifth while Chris Froome of Sky, the first to try and break, was 12sec behind Martin.
Earlier in the day French rider Nacer Bouhanni, the overnight leader after two bunch sprint stage wins, pulled out with a stomach complaint.
Froome, Quintana and other mountain specialists will get a chance Thursday to reel in main threat Contador when the fourth stage takes in a pure climber's summit finish after two other category one mountains at Pyrenean ski station Port Aine.
Belgian Debusschere wins local race
Local favorite Jens Debusschere gave cycling-mad Belgium something to cheer about Wednesday when he won the Dwars door Vlaanderen one-day race in Waregem, a day after the attacks on Brussels.
Islamic State bombers killed at least 34 people Tuesday in the most deadly attacks in the Belgian capital's history and organizers considered canceling the race.
They decided, however, that the event would go ahead as scheduled and no incidents were reported along the 199.7-km course.
Most riders were wearing black armbands in memory of the victims of the attack.
Some teams, however, were affected because several riders failed to arrive on time after Brussels airport, where one of the blasts occurred, was closed Tuesday.
Spanish team Movistar only had four out of its eight riders at the start and Giant-Alpecin had none.
Lotto-Soudal rider Debusschere, the 2014 Belgian champion, perfectly timed his sprint to beat Frenchman Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie) and another Belgian, Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo).
Several one-day classics are scheduled in Belgium in the coming days, starting with Friday's E3 Scheldeprijs. — Agencies
