We had two stages before Monday, but Stage 3 was always going to be the table-setter for the 2018 Tour de France, even after a chaotic Stage 1.
5 winners and 1 loser from Stage 3 of the Tour de France
The 2018 Tour de France general classification got a big reshuffling after Monday’s team time trial, setting the stage for 18 stages with everything still to be decided. (Unless you’re Nairo Quintana.)
Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images
BMC Racing, to no surprise, took the stage, with Team Sky not far behind. Defending Olympic road race champion Greg Van Avermaet will wear the well-earned yellow jersey for Stage 4, and potentially through the first rest day with a very favorable parcours forthcoming for the classics specialist.
As for what the final general classification will look like in Paris: There’s still a lot of racing to come, but we have a good idea of who is in good shape and who isn’t. Let’s discuss. (Stage results at the bottom).
Winners: Chris Froome, Richie Porte, and Adam Yates
All three riders suffered crashes on Stage 1 just as the peloton was gearing up for the sprint finish, losing 51 seconds apiece. They made up the time and then some on many of their closest rivals, taking back more than a minute each on Romain Bardet and AG2R La Mondiale, and just less than a minute on Movistar and the three-headed GC monster of Nairo Quintana, Mikel Landa, and Alejandro Valverde.
They’ve roughly leveled the field. And though they would prefer to be up by a minute and change than back at even, they can still be pleased that they’re still well in contention. There is one significant thorn in their side, however, and that’s our next winner:
Winner: Tom Dumoulin
Dumoulin, along with Froome, is attempting to do the Giro-Tour double. After finishing second to the salbutamol enthusiast in Italy, he has to be feeling pretty good about himself right now.
Team Sunweb finished in fourth place on the stage, just 12 seconds back of BMC. After the stage, he’ll have a 40-second lead on Porte and 44-second lead on Froome, a gap that he may be able to extend before the first rest day if he performs as well as expected on the cobbles of Stage 9.
The true test for Dumoulin, as always, will be the mountains, beginning on Stage 10. Still, some cushion is nice. His yellow jersey odds have shot way up.
Loser: Nairo Quintana (and BIG winner: Mikel Landa)
Whether Quintana would bust out of his doldrums and finally capitalize on all of his talent was a big pre-Tour question. The fact that his team entered the Tour with three GC contenders — Quintana, Landa, and Valverde — suggested that Movistar would be employing a See What Sticks strategy.
Then Quintana crashed on Stage 1, lost a minute and 15 seconds, and may have quickly made up his team’s mind. Movistar finished a disappointing 54 seconds behind BMC, which means that Quintana is now more than two minutes off the lead. He could in theory make up that gap in the mountains, but while we know that he can climb as well as anyone in the world, we haven’t seen an attacking instinct from the Colombian rider in quite some time.
So who’s left? Well, assuming Valverde is just a bit past his prime, there’s Good ‘ol Landa, who signed with Movistar after the 2017 Tour explicitly so he could start winning grand tours. Landa proved last year that he had the legs to win, occasionally holding back to protect Froome while riding for Sky and still finishing just one second off the podium.
Now the question is, does Movistar commit to one rider going forward, and is Quintana willing to become a domestique?
Draw: Romain Bardet
If you’re Romain Bardet, everything is ... fine. He didn’t crash on Stage 1, so he had time to give to Froome, Porte, and Yates. AG2R didn’t light the time trial on fire, but they didn’t choke either, finishing one minute, 15 seconds off the lead. That should be satisfactory for Bardet, a rider who seems to suffer a severe allergic reaction every time he sits down on an aero bike.
The man hoping to become France’s first Tour de France winner in 33 years is holding steady, hoping to simply survive the first week so he can make his mark in the mountains.
Stage 3 results
1. BMC Racing - 38’ 46”
2. Team Sky - + 4”
3. Quick-Step Floors - + 7”
4. Mitchelton-Scott - + 9”
5. Team Sunweb - + 12”
6. Education First-Drapac - + 35”
7. Bora-Hansgrohe - + 50”
8. Astana - + 52”
9. Katusha-Alpecin - + 53”
10. Movistar - + 54”
11. Bahrain-Merida - + 1’ 06”
12. AG2R La Mondiale - + 1’ 15”
13. Lotto NL-Jumbo - + 1’ 16”
14. Trek-Segafredo - +1 16”
15. UAE Team Emirates - + 1’ 39”
16. Groupama-FDJ - + 1’ 42”
17. Fortuneo-Samsic - + 1’ 47”
18. Direct-Energie - + 1’ 52”
19. Lotto Soudal - + 1’ 52”
20. Dimension Data - + 1’ 53”
21. Wanty-Groupe Gobert - + 2’ 24”
22. Cofidis - + 3’ 23”
See More:
