Wout van Aert took Jumbo-Visma’s second consecutive win on stage 5 of the 2020 Tour de France after hitching a ride on the Team Sunweb lead-out train intended for runner-up Cees Bol whom he easily overhauled at the finish in Privas. Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) finished third and took over the green points jersey from fourth-placed Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe). Race leader Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) lost his yellow jersey to Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) after being handed a time penalty for taking a late bidon.

Final KMs

Worried you missed all of today’s action? Fear not, I watched the entire snooze-fest for you and only the last KM with Wunderkid Wout van Aert was truly worth watching! Is there no end to his talents? The rest of the peloton fears not!

How the stage (finally) unfolded

Today the peloton headed into France profonde as if were on a Monday recovery ride. There was no break. That’s right, no break all day long.

Lukas Pöstlberger gave us a light-hearted moment auditioning for Austria’s version of Strictly Come Dancing.

Totally quiet day, it was going to be a bunch sprint, with Sam Bennett being the favourite to win. Little did they know that the Jumbo team let WvA have his freedom and he decided that the stage was his.

>New nickname alert<

But Bennett got a hell of a consolation prize: with his intermediate sprint win he became the virtual points jersey leader, a position he consolidated with his third-place finish, taking green away off Peter Sagan.

Post-Stage Shock

The irony of the uneventful day is that there was incredible drama after the stage ended. And it wasn’t just Sagan who lost his jersey!

Talking after he found out he was being penalised, Alaphilippe took it in his stride. “…if that’s how it is then no worries, tomorrow I’ll pick myself back up and we won’t talk about it anymore.” He’s now 16th in the GC, 16sec off the top spot.

You really can’t make this up. It was the strangest of stages.

The final word

Results

Stage 3 Top 5

1 Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) 4:21:22

2 Cees Bol (Team Sunweb) same time

3 Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quickstep) s/t

4 Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) s/t

5 Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) s/t

GC Top 10

1 Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) 22:28:30

2 Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) +0:03

3 Tadej Pogacar (UAE-Team Emirates) +0:07

4 Guillaume Martin (Team Cofidis) +0:09

5 Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) +0:13

6 Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) s/t

7 Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) s/t

8 Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott) s/t

9 Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana) s/t

10 Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) s/t

All the jerseys

Leader’s jersey Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott)

Points jersey Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quickstep)

King of the Mountains Benoit Cosnefroy (AG2R la Mondiale)

Best Young Rider Tadej Pogacar (UAE-Team Emirates)

Most Combativity of the Stage: Wout Poels (Bahrain McClaren)

For full race reviews, go to cyclingnews.

Official race website: Le Tour

Header image: ©AFP/ Anne-Christine Poujoulat/ GETTY IMAGES