Tour de France 2019: Julian Alaphilippe storms to stage three victory with brilliant late solo break
Julian Alaphilippe soloed to victory on stage three of the Tour de France to take the yellow jersey off Mike Teunissen.
The Deceuninck-Quick Step rider attacked on the final categorised climb of the 215km stage from Binche to Epernay and raced clear to take the win 26 seconds ahead of the pack, which was led over the line by Team Sunweb's Michael Matthews.
With Jumbo-Visma's Teunissen having been dropped from the main pack, that was enough for Alaphilippe to take the yellow jersey for the first time in his career. Re-live the stage:
A brilliant solo break by Alaphilippe from 15km out and no one could cope with the Frenchman. He wins the stage and the yellow jersey. Stunning performance from a world-class rider.
4km to go: Ineos are driving the peloton forwards at speed with the help of EF Education First, and they are closing towards Juilian Alaphilippe! He looks exhausted, panting in the summer heat, but he must be determined to get to this finish now in front of his home crowd.
5km to go: Alaphilippe takes on one last small climb before the fast, technical descent into Epernay which suits him perfectly. The final 500m are on an uphill drag and he will have to get the job done before then, you feel.
6km to go: Alaphilippe has had a storming year and is currently the No1 road racer in the world, and he is putting on a show right now. He still leads the chasers by 42 seconds and not only does he have the carrot of a stage victory but also the yellow jersey. Can he close it out?
8km to go: The latest time gap between Alaphilippe and the main bunch is 50 seconds. Might this be enough for him to clinch the victory? If he is caught he will have Greg van Avermaet and Peter Sagan to contend with.
10km to go: Alaphilippe now leads this stage by around 30 seconds, while the yellow jersey of Mike Teunissen has slid back the other way. The maillot jaune will be switching owners tonight.
13km to go: As Alaphilippe crested the hill, Wellens pulled over with what looked like a mechanical problem, and he may lose serious time now. Alaphilippe meanwhile is absolutely flying! He's zips down the hill in crouch mode and he's is attacking the road towards Epernay.
14km to go:Wellens throws in the towel. His solo bid is done and the peloton swallows him up. Who is going to come to the fore here? Here's our answer: Julian Alaphilippe attacks!
15km to go: Wellens still leads as he approaches the final categorised climb of the day, but it's only 55 seconds and the peloton is closing in as a bunch of riders are shed out the back, including Wellens' sprint teammate Caleb Ewan. The pace has been high in the past 20km and there is no way it's going to be a sprinter who wins this one – it is all about strength over the final climb to stay in the reckoning.
20km to go:Mike Teunissen has struggled on the penultimate climb of the day and it looks like the yellow jersey might be changing hands today. His Jumbo-Visma teammates are not slowing down and instead will turn their attentions to getting Wout van Aert in position to challenge at the front. Lots of others trying to muscle into the front including Greg van Avermaet and Jakob Fuglsang.
25km to go: The rest of the breakaway has been swept up by the peloton and now there is only one man out in front of the main yellow-jersey group, Tim Wellens.
30km to go: He's committing to this push for glory, is Wellens. This is some superhuman effort from the big Belgian and he's pulled this kind of victory off before, most notably at the Giro d'Italia in 2016. But to close this out from such a distance, with hoards of chasers closing in on him, would be something very special.
35km to go: The side-effect of Tim Wellens going on the attack at this moment is that is sweeping up the King of the Mountains points on offer, which means even if he doesn't win this stage, at least he is likely to get the compensation of taking the polka dot jersey from Greg van Avermaet's back.
45km to go... and Tim Wellens attacks! He is the standout rider in that lead group and he's decided to go for it, bursting up the first of these four categorised climbs which pepper the road to the finish. He's two and a half minutes clear of the peloton.
For Egan Bernal and Geraint Thomas, it was a good day in the black and red of Team Ineos, finishing second on the team time-trial and gaining significant time on rivals like Astana’s Jakob Fuglsang, who crashed on stage one, Adam Yates of Mitchelton-Scott and Romain Bardet.
But they lost 20 seconds to Jumbo-Visma’s Steven Kruijswijk, who is considered one of their main rivals for this Tour having finished fifth overall last year.
Potential stage winners
Julian Alaphillipe – A master of hilly stages like this one, Alaphilippe will be determined to pick up King of the Mountains points, but he may find that this route is not quite brutal enough to leave behind rivals with a faster finish.
Wout van Aert – Another one of Jumbo-Visma’s brilliant stable of riders who specialises in this kind of one-day challenge.
Greg van Avermaet – The Belgian is currently in the polka dots but could have sights on an upgrade to the yellow jersey here if he can escape up the road and win the stage.
Alejandro Valverde – The reigning road race world champion suffered a little in yesterday’s team time-trial but this is the kind of opportunist’s day in which he thrives.
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