2020 Tour de France Stage 3 Results & Recap
Stage 3 of the 2020 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Ewan victorious in Sisteron
Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) won stage 3 of the Tour de France in a sprint featuring the best in the world today in Sisteron, coming from behind to beat Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quick Step) and Giacomo Nizzolo of NTT Pro Cycling.
"We are down to six riders, but everyone stayed motivated and gave 110 percent to replace the two missing riders so I could win," Ewan said. "We knew I could win today. With one kilometre to go, I was too far behind and I took the risk of going even more backward to find a good wheel. I went backward to the barriers, but luckily I got through. My first victories last year were very special, but this is the Tour de France. It's the biggest race in the world, and I'm still super happy to win. I hope for more wins to come, this year and beyond."
Julian Alaphilippe finished near the front to keep the yellow jersey for another day. He's four seconds ahead of Adam Yates (Mitchelton Scott) and seven seconds in front of best young rider, Marc Hirschi (Team Sunweb).
"We respected our plan to control the stage with the team all day, defend my jersey and sprint for Sam Bennett," Alaphilippe said. "There's a little bit of a disappointment that he came second but myself being in yellow is pure happiness. It's another hard stage with an uphill finish tomorrow, but I'll give it all to retain the jersey once again."
Like yesterday, an attack went at the very beginning of the 198km stage from Nice to Sisteron. Jérôme Cousin (Total Direct Energie) was the first to instigate, bringing Anthony Perez (Cofidis), Oliver Naesen (AG2R-La Mondiale) and KOM leader Benoît Cosnefroy along. Naesen, riding in support of Cosnefroy's KOM lead, sat up after helping his teammate across to Perez and Cousin. The peloton allowed the trio to gain around three minutes advantage for the majority of the stage.
After Perez outsprinted Cosnefroy on the KOM climbs col de Pilon and col de La Faye, it looked as though he would take over the polka dots at the end of the stage. but later on, a crash would force Perez to abandon, leaving Cosnefroy in the lead once again.
"I followed Anthony PĂ©rez for the polka dot jersey," Cosnefroy said. "That was fair. He was stronger than me in the sprints up the hills. Now I have mixed feelings. I'm happy to retain the jersey, but my thoughts are with Anthony, who should have taken it, but he crashed out. I also crashed again today, and I landed on the same injured parts of my body. It's not ideal, but I can't complain when I see what happened to Anthony."
Cousin went ahead along at km 71 when Perez and Cosnefroy decided to return to the peloton, and boldly continued, despite the stage assuredly coming down to a sprint finish.
"I suspected a battle for the polka dot jersey in the breakaway we had," Cousin said. "When they sat up, I kept going as a mark of respect to the Tour de France, and we never know what can happen. Had I taken enough of an advantage and the rain would have started, for instance. Anyway, I can't win a bunch sprint. I can't win a mountain stage, so I have to try elsewhere."
Cousin was caught with 16km to go, and from there, it was a drag race amongst the sprint teams. Sagan attempted a long-range sprint in the finale, but was quickly swallowed up by Bennett and Ewan.
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