Tour de France stage 3 – Live coverage

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The peloton had come back to 1:30 but the pace has been knocked off on this second climb. 2:15 as it stands. 

Here’s how the scrap for the KOM points played out. 

We’ve got some pre-stage thoughts from the 2019 champion Egan Bernal. 

“It’s one of those stages that maybe doesn’t seem so hard but you have to be alert,” he says. “These stages are always the ones where something happens – crashes, that type of thing. We have to be switched on, more than anything.

As for how he’s going after the first two stages: “Good, good, good. It’s only the start of the Tour. There is a long, long way to go, and we’ll see how it goes from here.”

After a short descent, we’re climbing again. It’s the Col de Faye, another cat-3 climb that averages 4.8% over 5.3km. 

142km to go

The peloton crests the Col du Pilon with a deficit of 1:50 to the three leaders. 

Perez gets it. Cosnefroy struggles to get around and now goes behind in the virtual KOM standings. 

Perez opens up, Cosnefroy immediately springs into action!

Here we go. Into the final 500m of the climb. Cousin leads, Cosnefroy sticks religiously to Perez’s wheel.

It’s a long day in the saddle for a relatively slim potential haul. This climb and the other two cat-3 climbs offer 2 points for the first rider and 1 point for second. Coupled with the cat-4 climb later, there are a maximum of seven points on offer today. In the KOM standings, it’s currently 18-18 between Cosnefroy and Perez.

2000 metres from the top of the Col du Pilon and the games between Cosnefroy and Perez begin. Cousin threatens with an acceleration but it’s back together now. 

Lotto Soudal have sent a rider to the front on the climb. The gap is now 1:25 to the three leaders, who are 3km from the top.

Showers were predicted but this is more than a shower. It’s a downpour, with large raindrops slapping onto the tarmac. 

The peloton moved to neutralise much of that opening stage, in what was a welcome piece of collective action in the absence of anything meaningful from the UCI or CPA. Here’s one of the peloton’s leading voices, Luke Rowe, on how it unfolded, including a bit of a telling off for Astana, who seemed to push on more than the others, resulting in their leader Miguel Angel Lopez careering into a road sign.

Luke Rowe: Astana made themselves look pretty stupid

This won’t be a welcome sight after the tribulations of the opening day, when the rain turned the roads into what pretty much every rider described as an ice rink. The reason seemed to be the fact it hadn’t rained for so long, and the downpour brought all the oil from motor vehicles to the surface, meaning riders were hitting the deck descending at a snail’s pace. Hopefully those rains will have cleaned the roads and we won’t have the same kind of slippery surface skim here. 

Weather alert. It has started raining and the riders are calling for their capes. 

151km to go

The breakaway trio start the Col du Pilon with a lead of 1:45. 

And here’s a shot of Cosnefroy in the break a few moments ago. 

(Image credit: Getty Images)

This is Cosnefroy’s third day on the attack at this year’s Tour, out of three stages. The first was a somewhat doomed solo mission on the flat run-in to Nice, the second a mid-stage bridge to the break, which was slightly suprising given he might have chosen to wait and play his hand in the finale. Still, he ended up with the polka-dots. 

The 24-year-old is a rising star and has happy hunting ground at this Tour but has taken a scattergun approach so far. It’s just hard to suppress his attacking instinct, which has contributed to comparisons with a certain Julian Alaphilippe. We fuelled those comparisons when we interviewed him in December, finding a young rider full of energy and ambition. 

The next Julian Alaphilippe? Benoît Cosnefroy makes his mark

The gap is holding at 2:10 as Cosnefroy, Cousin, and Perez grind their way uphill. The first categorised climb is the Col du Pilon (8.4km at 5.1%) and it officially starts in just a few kilometres’ time. 

It’s Remi Cavagna leading the bunch for QuickStep as they take on a downhill section. Before long, the road will tilt uphill for the best part of 40km.

Yellow chain too for our race leader

The break pass through Vence, where a somewhat concerning number of fans are lining the roads. The COVID-19 headlines have made way for the opening-day drama and Alaphilippe’s exploits, but this remains a precarious Tour. A reminder that two positive cases in one team bubble will see the whole team expelled from the race. Here’s the latest on that situation. 

This might be a relatively unthreatening break but Deceuninck-QuickStep aren’t giving them much rope. The gap has stabilised at 2:25. 

Here was Alaphilippe at the stage start. Like last year, he’s gone for black shorts and yellow bar tape.

Julian Alaphilippe

(Image credit: Getty Images)

More on Bennett and his sprint rivals from four-time green jersey winner Sean Kelly, who we spoke to at the weekend.  

Sean Kelly on this year’s Tour de France sprinters and the battle for green

Bennett was in a great position on the Promenade des Anglais on the opening day, but let another rider onto the wheel of his lead-out man and that disrupted his rhythm. The Irishman is such a talented rider but he doesn’t half put pressure on himself, and every win feels like catharsis with him. 

It’s a good scenario for QuickStep. They haven’t had to raise their heart rates so far in the first act of their defence of the maillot jaune, and with a break of just three riders, they shouldn’t have to sweat too much in keeping this under to control to ensure a bunch sprint for their fast man Sam Bennett. 

189km to go

That leaves us with a three-rider breakaway (Cosnefroy, Perez, Cousin), followed nearly three minutes later by a peloton where the race leader’s Deceuninck-QuickStep are now setting the tempo. 

Naesen sits up and drifts back to the bunch. He wasn’t really interested in that small break and will save his legs for another day. It appeared his role was to simply make sure Cosnefroy didn’t miss it – not that it was a hard break to make it into. 

That’s it. The break has formed in the first kilometre. Joining Cosnefroy and Naesen are Anthony Perez (Cofidis) and Jérôme Cousin (Total Direct Energie). Perez is second in the KOM standings, tied on points with Cosnefroy, so this looks like a battle for the polka-dots on the three cat-3 climbs we have on the menu. No one else looked keen, so the peloton seems accepting of a bunch sprint in Sisteron. 

It looks like Naesen’s trying to help out polka-dot jersey wearer Cosnefroy, his AG2R teammate. And now the peloton locks up. It’s a four-rider breakaway. 

Oliver Naesen jumps across. 

The flag is waved and here come the attacks. Total Direct Energie and Cofidis on the move. 

Christian Prudhomme rises through the sunroof and is about to wave us underway

We’re off! 

The riders are on the move, tucked behind the race director’s car as they head through the short opening neutralised section. 

The riders are gathering on the start line. Alaphilippe, of course, is in the yellow jersey. Stage 1 winner Alexander Kristoff, who handed it over yesterday, is now in green, while Hirschi is the best young rider in white and Benoit Cosnefroy is in the polka-dot jersey after another random attack took him to the top of the mountains classification yesterday. 

Recommended reading today is Barry Ryan’s feature on Marc Hirschi. Everyone knows about Alaphilippe, everyone knew he was going to attack on that climb, and everyone knew he was going to win. What many people didn’t know is Hirschi would be one of the two able to follow, and what many people don’t know is much about the Swiss 22-year-old at all – including Adam Yates, going by his post-race interview. Anyway, Barry recently interviewed Hirschi at length and has the following story for us. 

Marc Hirschi introduces himself at Tour de France

It certainly hasn’t been the gentlest of introductions to a Tour de France, and while many expect a sprint at the end of the day, this is far from one of those flat opening-week processions. 

The opening half of the stage looks like a proper slog, with the Col du Pilon and Col de la Faye coming together and the road continuing to rise thereafter. The Col des Lègues will put the sprinters in more trouble again, but what swings this back in their favour are the 70 or so lightly downhill kilometres ahead of the run-in to Sisteron. It should be enough ground for some organised teams to bring about a bunch gallop, but it will again be one contested with fatigued legs.

Before we get going, why not catch up on yesterday’s action? We have an in-depth write-up and photo gallery, plus all the results and standings at the link below. 

Tour de France: Julian Alaphilippe wins stage 2

The pre-stage podium ceremony is well underway, and it’s CCC who are being presented to the abyss at the moment. The riders will roll out at 12:10 local time, with the race proper getting underway around 10 minutes after that.

Good morning and welcome to the Cyclingnews live race centre for stage 3 of the Tour de France. We’ve had an action-packed Grand Départ, with the rain-soaked chaos on Saturday and a breathless Julian Alaphilippe exhibition on Sunday, but it’s time to leave Nice behind. Today’s stage takes us 198km north west, to Sisteron. It’s an undulating day in the saddle but a bunch sprint would seem to be the most likely outcome. 

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