Tour de France 2019 result: Julian Alaphilippe wins stage three and yellow jersey as Geraint Thomas slips back

Julian Alaphilippe is ranked the world’s No 1 road racer, and on the day the 2019 Tour de France finally entered its homeland the brilliant Frenchman showed exactly why, storming to victory on stage three to claim the yellow jersey for the first time in his career.

Alaphilippe took hold of the hilly finish towards Epernay in northern France with 15km to go, breaking away from the peloton on the last of four categorised climbs and staying clear with a powerful solo attack which no one could match. Australia’s Michael Matthews finished second, 26 seconds later.

Most of the general classification contenders reached the finish together in a chasing pack of 50 riders behind Matthews, but the reigning champion Geraint Thomas showed a first small sign of fallibility, losing a handful of seconds to his Ineos teammate and co-leader Egan Bernal as he came in 13th.

Thomas is unlikely to be too concerned by a few seconds, and matched other key rivals like Astana’s Jakob Fuglsang, Mitchelton-Scott’s Adam Yates and Jumbo-Visma’s Steven Kruijswick, but he will be wary of letting any gap to Bernal grow further in this opening week, with the summit finish on stage six likely to be crucial to any tilt in the power-balance within Team Ineos.

The most important thing for Thomas and the rest of the GC contenders was to avoid any incidents in what was a hectic finish, with a series of categorised climbs packed into the closing 50km of a 215km stage from the south of Belgium, and they managed to do so as all 176 Tour starters completed the stage.

A five-man breakaway was five minutes clear for much of the day, with Jumbo-Visma’s Tony Martin single-handedly driving the front of the peloton to keep the leading quintet in check and protect his team’s yellow jersey, worn by stage one winner Mike Teunissen.

But Teunissen faded as the pace ratcheted up in the hills around Epernay, as the Belgian Tim Wellens made a brave attack from the breakaway but suffered a puncture late in the day – although he collected enough King of the Mountains points to earn the polka dot jersey as a consolation prize.

As Wellens flagged, Alaphilippe took his moment to charge and no one could keep up with a rider who has mastered the craft of winning on tricky technical stages like this one over the past two years.

He might not have the form to keep winning when the brutal Alpine climbs rear into view later in the Tour, and he probably never will, but he joins a list of worthy one-day specialists to have worn yellow in the opening week of the Tour and will have his eye on more stage wins to add to his new tally of three.

Tuesday’s stage four from Reims to Nancy won’t be one of them. It is perfectly set up for the sprinters, with a long straight drag to the finish line, and the big names like Caleb Ewan, Dylan Groenewegen, Elia Viviani and Peter Sagan will all be desperate to clinch victory after missing out on the opening day in Brussels.