Team Columbia-HTC’s Greg Henderson of New Zealand powered to victory in the bunch sprint that decided stage three of the Vuelta a Espana.  Henderson was the fastest in the 189.9-kilometre stage running from Zutphen to Venlo in Holland, outsprinting Borut Bozic of Slovenia and Spain’s Oscar Freire.

“My primary aim here in the Vuelta is to get [teammate] Andre Greipel across the line first,” Henderson said.  “But today was my day just because it got mixed up with 500 or 600 metres to go. I opened up my sprint with about 150 metres to go and ended up winning the stage quite easily.  In any case, it’s a long Tour yet and there’ll be plenty more sprint stages.”

Henderson’s victory is the 73rd of the season for Columbia-HTC men’s team and 13th in a major Tour this season. Columbia-HTC has now claimed wins in all three top stage races in 2009.

“If you look through the record books you’ll see a number of different Columbia-HTC riders up there with the wins,” added Henderson.  “We all work for one another, and we all get our chance to win.”