Our riders holding their own

WOW, stage three was solid.

There was a lot of pressure on Julian Alaphilippe. He is a French hero and this was the first stage into France this year, and he was the hot favourite.

But he delivered in spades and attacked aggressively 15km from the finish, caught the last of the breakaway in Belgian Tim Wellens, blew past and headed for home.

Michael Matthews looked awesome with a fine second place in what was a very tough uphill 500 metres to the line. But as good as he looked, he was not overly happy.

“I take some confidence yes, but no, I’m not happy with my shape,” Matthews said.

Behind Matthews there was a small split among the title contenders in the final sprint, with Thibaut Pinot and Egan Bernal sneaking in five seconds before the rest of their rivals.

As predicted this finale was too tough for the pure sprinters and even Mike Teunissen, resplendent in his yellow jersey, couldn’t withstand the relentless pressure in the final 30km.

With a withering attack, Alaphilippe jumped clear and soon made contact with Wellens — the last man standing from the early break — but Alaphilippe didn’t need any support and charged clear at the top of the final climb and although Team Ineos and Jumbo Visma tried to contain the gap, there was no stopping the Frenchman who went on to grab his first yellow jersey.

Alaphilippe now leads Jumbo Visma’s Wout van Aert by 20 seconds and Steven Kruijswijk and Kiwi George Bennett by 26 seconds.

Defending champion Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos) is seventh overall, 40 seconds back, but didn’t seem too worried.

“There was only about 40 or 50 guys there (at the end) which was surprising, but that climb at the finish was solid. It was steep and hard,” Thomas said.

For the Aussies it was a pretty good day. Matthews on the podium, Richie Porte looking confident and keeping out of trouble, Simon Clarke directing traffic well for EF Education and the Australian team Mitchelton Scott keeping their leader Adam Yates up near the pointy end.

Richie was pretty positive when he stopped for a chat at the finish and discussed that final 50kms. “Not much happened before that. It was fast, but that was a tough little final,” Porte said.

“I think the climb with 20km to go (Cote de Mutigny), it was 900m at 12 per cent, I think that showed who is on form. “I felt pretty good. I was up there with the strongest guys, but it was a nice day to tick off.”