Tadej Pogacar breezed to a second consecutive victory to take the third stage of the Volta a Catalunya on Wednesday and widen his advantage as race leader.

The two-time Tour de France winner followed Spaniard Mikel Landa's attack with under eight kilometres to go and then flew past him in another show of strength after his dominant performance to claim stage two.

It was another mountainous Pyrenees route from Sant Joan de les Abadesses to Port Aine over 176.7 kilometres and the Slovenian UAE Team Emirates rider capitalised by putting nearly a minute into Landa.

The Soudal Quick-Step rider came in second and is also second overall, with Italian Antonio Tiberi third over the line.

"It definitely wasn't easy, it's a really hard climb," Pogacar told Teledeporte.

"(There was) not enough oxygen, it was super hard. Once again, a super good stage from us, from the team, and I'm happy to take the win."

Despite his strong performance, Pogacar said he was tired in the final kilometres.

"It was Mikel who attacked first, I went over him, I saw he already made the gap and I was thinking maybe it's too early but I found a good rhythm and until the last two kilometres I could still push good," he added.

"The last two was a bit tough but I still managed to finish well."

Pogacar extended his lead at the top of the general classification to two minutes and 27 seconds, and is firm favourite to win the race ahead of an ambitious tilt at a 2024 Giro-Tour double.

Bora-Hansgrohe rider Aleksandr Vlasov, third, trails Landa by 28 seconds, while Frenchman Lenny Martinez of Groupama-FDJ is fourth.

"I am happy, the objective was to eke out more lead on third place," Landa told Teledeporte.

"There's a long way to go to defend this second place, I want to finish on the podium."

Thursday's stage four, a 169km run from Sort to Lleida, is expected to end in a bunch sprint with the second half of the race almost entirely on flat terrain.