2017 Tour de France: Démare wins, Cav and Sagan out. Preview of Stage 5

Having shown good form on Stages 2 and 3 Arnaud Démare duly won his first Tour de France stage in Vittel. Unfortunately his victory was overshadowed by the serious crash involving Mark Cavendish and Peter Sagan. From the footage Sagan veers across the road to get on Démare's wheel taking Cav over towards the barrier. Then Sagan's elbow is raised. Whether his elbow actually connected with Cav is now hotly debated or whether Cav was now so close the barrier he was crashing anyway.

Whatever – the result is that Cav is out of the Tour with a broken shoulder blade and Sagan has been disqualified and thrown off the Tour. Initially the commissaires penalised Sagan by docking time and Green Jersey points before deciding to disqualify him, which has now caused a huge controversy. 

It is a great shame that the 2017 Tour has now lost two of its biggest stars.It has also blown the Green jersey competition wide open. 

Although involved in another crash within the last kilometre Geraint Thomas remains in Yellow. This crash held up Marcel Kittel. 

Stage 5 Vittel to La Planche des Belles Filles 160.5 kms

The final climb – last part is 20%

After the opening Time Trial this stage, which finishes is the first real test for the overall contenders. La Planche des Belles Filles was first used in 2012 and then again in 2014, so to feature three times in the last five years shows it has rapidly become a favourite. In 2012 Chris Froome won the stage and Bradley Wiggins took the Yellow Jersey and never lost it. The same thing happened in 2014 when Vincenzo Nibali won here and kept the Yellow jersey all the way to Paris. 

I fancy that either Geraint Thomas or Chris Froome will be in Yellow tonight unless a breakaway is allowed to stay away. If other overall contenders want to shake up Sky it would make sense as well as making the race more exciting if they started attacking well before the start of La Planche. It will be interesting to see how Richie Porte goes today – will he put in a big attack? Equally the steepness of the climb should suit Nairo Quintana, so will be an indication whether he has recovered from the Giro. Although time gaps are unlikely to be very big, I think we may well see Alberto Contador lose some time today.

Guillaume Van Keirsbulck was the sole breakaway ride of the day – riding almost the whole stage on his own not getting caught until just over 10 kms to go.

2017 Tour de France; Sagan wins Stage 3; Stage 4 another snoozefest preview

 Stage 3: top 10
Peter Sagan wins

Stage 3 Overall 

Geraint Thomas retains the Yellow Jersey

Despite pulling a foot out of his pedal within sight of the line Peter Sagan won the gallop up the Côte des Religieuses closely chased by Michael Matthews, Dan Martin and Greg van Avermaet. This brings Peter Sagan's tally of Tour stage wins is now up to eight.

As I suspected the Côte proved to be too steep for the pure sprinters with the exception of Arnaud Demarre, who came in with most of the overall contenders at two seconds down. Only Simon Yates dropped time on his overall rivals coming in 10 seconds down so losing 8 seconds on Thomas, Froome, Quintana etc.

Geraint Thomas retained the Yellow Jersey with Chris Froome now in second as the other riders in front of him have dropped down the order. In contrast Dan Martin picked six seconds on his overall rivals. 

Unfortunately there was little to get excited about this stage. The breakaway was established quite early. Within the break there was a bit of a tussle of the King of the Mountains, which Tour debutant Nathan Brown won. The break rarely got than an advantage of two minutes. Another debutant Lilian Calmejane was the last breakaway to be caught and certainly impressed.   

It was only in the last 20 kilometres of the race that things really came exciting, although it had started to get stressful for the riders before that. 

Stage 4 Preview: Mondorf-les-Bains to Vittel 207.5 kms 

This I fear will be another long stage snoozefest until the last 20 kms or so when the sprinters' teams start jousting for position. This is a largely flat stage with one Category 4 climb about 40 kms from the finish. I expect an early break to get away only to be swallowed up by the peloton towards the end of the stage.

The finish is slightly uphill but not enough to trouble the sprinters, though it may give a slight advantage to Sagan. Otherwise it is the usual sprinters who are favourite to take the win – Marcel Kittel, Arnaud Demarre, who is going well, André Griepel and possibly Mark Cavendish, who seems to be going well despite his illness this year.