Stage 3: Friday 18

179 km, D+ 3000 m

The last 30 km are again on a circuit (2 laps), a very hilly one.

I had a hard time understanding the situation when I switched the TV on, then I slept through several parts, while there was a lot of action, so my account will be short, coarse and unreliable.

I think the two main points of today could be:

• The peloton was unable to control the breakaway; the gap was growing, there were counter-attacks, but pulling was irregular for long periods of time and inefficient for others (EF).
• When the gap reached 2 minutes, Visma had Piganzoli🇮🇹 break away from the peloton; several Visma riders successively let themselves drop from the breakaway, in order to help him at different cleverly chosen points; the manoeuvre was a success! Directors seem to have finally mastered this tactic, as we could see on the Tour of Spain.

Reinderink (🇳🇱 Soudal-QS) left a few miles from the line and the Total/Visma trio behind him never managed to catch him.

Arrieta🇪🇸 was UAE's card, he tried but he dropped a couple of times.

A lot of gaps were created today, there are not 2 riders in the GC time!

Van der Poel was unable to follow the attacks, and he arrived in a group at 7 minutes... Same thing for other leaders from yesterday.

Now it is Piganzoli🇮🇹 who leads GC, followed by the two Total riders who arrived with him and Reinderink🇳🇱: Gachignard🇫🇷 and Vercher🇫🇷.

Everyday, yellow cards are handed on this race, the local commissars love to punish the position of riders on their bike. I don't know whether it is warranted or not, but they act differently than on other races.