Spain's Luis Sanchez, touted as the next Miguel Indurain, is the new leader in the Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under after an enthralling third stage between Glenelg and Victor Harbor on Thursday.

Sanchez, 21, from the Murcia region and riding for Liberty Seguros, outsprinted Belgian Johan Van Summeren to win the stage after both riders attacked a 26-man breakaway 20km from the finish.

The win catapulted Sanchez into the leader's yellow jersey after he trailed Queensland's Robbie McEwen by 12 seconds overnight.

McEwen's hopes of an overall win evaporated Thursday

Photo: Graham Watson

McEwen, 32, winner of the opening two stages was the day’s biggest loser, missing the break and coming in with the peloton in 52nd spot at 31:56 behind the leaders.

Liberty Seguros manager Marino Lejarreta, winner of the 1982 Vuelta a España, hailed Sanchez as a rising star of world cycling.

“He is one of the best talents in Spain,” Lejarreta said. “It's only his second year, but even in his first year as a professional he did things that showed he has amazing class and potential.

“Like Miguel, he still has to improve his climbing, but it is early in his career. You could say they are twins in some ways.

“Of all the young riders (in Spain) he is by far the one with the most talent. He doesn't bear any resemblance to myself, but certainly to Miguel (Indurain, who won five Tours de France), sure .... He is a very good time-trialist, he is fast and can sprint. He also has a winner's mentality.”

With four riders in the breakaway, including Queensland's Allan Davis, Liberty Seguros always held the whip hand, much to the chagrin of local hero Stuart O'Grady.

O'Grady (Cofidis) was shadowed by Davis and although he tried to cover every attack, weight of numbers finally told.

He finished 18 seconds behind Sanchez yesterday in 10th place, and although still in contention for overall honours, conceded his chances of winning the tour were remote.

“I am a bit disappointed I only had one teammate up there,” O'Grady said. “It was a bit like playing football with half a team in the end.

QuickStep drove the chase...

Photo: Graham Watson

“It just came down to a numbers game and there wasn't much I could do about it.“It will very difficult (for the general classification). Liberty have a very strong team here and they've got quite a few cards to play.

“We're just going to have to see how those guys can travel up Willunga Hill (in Saturday's stage) and it makes our job a lot more difficult to try to win from now on.”

With more than half of the 93-rider field out of contention, O'Grady said it would be easy for the Liberty Seguros team to allow a breakaway and then control the race.

“I was pretty marked there at the end,” he said. “I had quite a few goes with young Gene Bates to get away, but constantly had two or three Liberty guys on the back wheel. It makes it a bit hard.”

Bates (Uni South Australia) won the bunch sprint for third ahead of Canberra's Robert McLachlan (United Water) and Spain's Javier Ramirez Abeja (Liberty Seguros).

Dual Athens Olympics gold medallist Graeme Brown (Panaria) was also dogged by bad luck yesterday when his teammate Julio Perez hit a median strip early in the race and brought them both down.

While Perez retired from the race injured, Brown regained the bunch, but didn't make the winning breakaway.

Dual world time-trial champion Michael Rogers and his entire Belgian Quickstep team also failed to make the breakaway and were forced to ride back 100km towards Adelaide as punishment, on top of the 139km of the stage from Glenelg.