Stage 3

The road

At the start

A kermesse around Breda

Mike Teunissen takes over the red jersey and Jumbo-Visma still hold the first six places, with Richard Carapaz best of the rest at thirteen seconds. Sam Bennett, who missed selection for two Tours de France and nearly missed this race as well, won in Utrecht. Today is 194 kilometres of kermesse racing around Breda, through the Belgian enclaves at Baarle-Hertog, with a 400-metre rise for mountains points.

How it was won

1. 160 km to go

   The 'rising road', barely

   Twenty kilometres of crosswind tension end as the race turns east into a tailwind, right where the day's only climb rears up: a 400-metre stretch that exists purely to hand out mountains points. De Gendt takes it, but Van den Berg is second and keeps his polka dots.

2. 223 km to go

   De Gendt takes the last prize

   The Belgian leads over the intermediate too, but the gap is down to twenty seconds and there is nothing left to fight for. The catch comes eleven kilometres from home.

3. 3At the line

   Bennett makes it two

   Van Poppel is once again the perfect last man and Bennett is once again the fastest, with Coquard fourth and Merlier's day unravelling. Behind, the race has lost Michael Woods, crashed out with a head impact, while Carapaz had to chase back from a spill inside the last twenty kilometres.

The result