Tour de France stage 3 preview: Cavendish’s chance in bunch sprint

After a thrilling first two days of this Tour de France, which threw up all manner of drama in the Italian hills, the peloton faces the longest stage of this year’s race and a likely sprint finish on the streets of Turin.
It has been a brilliant start, with two demanding stages producing unexpected results. Romain Bardet won the opening day to wear the maillot jaune for the first time in his career, before debutant Kevin Vauquelin pulled off a surprise breakaway win to make it back-to-back French wins.
Not far behind him, Tadej Pogacar crossed the line alongside Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Richard Carapaz, who all share the same time at the top of the general classification. Pogacar will wear yellow today by virtue of having the lowest cumulative finishing places – 18, compared to Evenepoel’s 20, Vingegaard’s 29 and Carapaz’s 32.
And so to stage three, which begins in Plaisance and heads west, over three small category-four climbs, the last of which, the Cote de Sommariva Perno, is the stiffest of the three (3.1km at 4.6% gradient).
The road rolls gently downhill towards Turin, entering the city from the south via a long, straight road. Two sharp left turns precede the home straight and the finish line in the shadow of the Stadio Olimpico, home of Torino Football Club.
The 231km route opens the window for a breakaway to form early in the day but expect Alpecin-Deceuninck and the other major sprint teams to try and control the final kilometres in an effort to position their fast riders for the line.
Jasper Philipsen is the favourite, having won the green jersey last year along with four flat stages, but there is a stacked list of sprinters ready to challenge him including Arnaud de Lie, Dylan Groenewegen, Sam Bennett, Wout van Aert and Mark Cavendish, chasing a record 35th stage win to finally eclipse the great Eddy Merckx.
And given the fight for the yellow jersey is on a knife edge, it would not be a surprise to see action among the general classification contenders too. Evenepoel certainly has the kick to snatch a few seconds from Pogacar – he only needs one to grab hold of the maillot jaune in his first Tour de France, and that will be a tempting prize.
The stage is set to begin at 10.30am BST, and is expected to conclude at around 4pm. Find out how to watch on TV here.
It would be wonderful to see Cavendish finally claim No 35 but we are plumping for Arnaud de Lie to win a bunch sprint.