Orica GreenEdge's Simon Gerrans has won the third stage of the eighteen Santos Tour Down Under.
This was a 139kms long stage which centred on the final climb - The Corkscrew Hill, six kilometres from the end of a stage from Glenelg to Campbelltown and saw 137 riders including new race leader Jay McCarthy of Tinkoff set out.
When the flag dropped, Laurens De Vreese of Astana went off and was soon 1.50 clear and then three minutes which put him as the virtual leader on road on days where temperatures were around 31c.
With 16.5kms gone, De Vreese's lead had dropped to 2.30 and he was up the road as Rohan Dennis of BMC was one of three riders who crashed before all three were able to re-join the peloton.
The first iiNet Sprint was at McLaren Flat after 33.8kms was taken by De Vreese with Juan Jose Lobato of Movistar coming second ahead of the race leader Jay McCarthy who moved to three points behind Caleb Ewan in the Points competition.
The lead of De Vreese, who finished 78th in last years race, came down to two minutes with 102kms remaining but came back up to 3,10, fourteen kilometres later.
With 72.5km raced, De Vreese was 1.30 clear as the temperature got up to 35C an an area close to Stirling.
Through the feedzone at Mylor, and the gap was at 1.40 but the Belgian kept pushing and with 48kms remaining, his lead stood at 3.10.
De Vreese sailed through the second sprint and the five seconds in Oakbank after 95.2kms with a lead of four minutes. Caleb Ewan in the red jersey took the three seonds and Jay McCarthy took the final two seconds.
With 23 kilometres left, De Vreese sat up and allowed the peloton to catch him.
Going into the final twenty kilometres, there was a crash that took down a number of riders including Tyler Farrar and Marcus Berghardt. This split the peloton with thirty five riders in the front group including Team Sky's Geraint Thomas and the race leader.
Team Sky started to control things but Tinkoff came up and took over, leading going onto the Corkscrew Road.
George Bennett came up but McCarthy was hanging on in third wheel behind two Lotto NL-Jumbo ridrs as the road started to ramp up to 16%.
With 5.8kms to go, Richie Porte of BMC attacked but everyone was with him/
Sergio Henao and Michael Woods pushed forward and Henao was first over the top with enough points to put him into the Subaru KOM leaders jersey.
It was all down hill to the finish and with three kilometres to go, Porte led a group at 105kmh which caught up to the two escapers.
Rohan Dennis came up as did McCarthy and this group of ten were altogether under the flam rouge.
Fernandez of Movistar led out the sprint but Rohan Dennis went as did Simon Gerrans who won it on a photo finsh ahead of Dennis, Woods and McCarthy who lost the leaders jersey to Simon Gerrans by three seconds but gains the Sprint jersey, in a time of 3.37.34.
Gerrans said to Paul Sherwen: "That was tough in the corkscrew and my team mates got me into a great position so I could get the results. Rohan Dennis rode a great race but I am happy to have taken the win.
I avoided the first two sprints so I could save some energy and go for the win and it paid off.
"I am thrilled to have won but there was some risk involved. "I have probably moved up a bit on the GC so I am right on track."
Cannondale lead the team competition.
.