Summary

  • Britain's Mark Cavendish claims his 31st stage win at the Tour

  • First Tour stage win for Cavendish since 2016

  • Belgium's Eddy Merckx holds record at 34 stage wins

  • Mathieu van der Poel wears the leader's yellow jersey

  • Geraint Thomas races despite dislocating his shoulder on stage three

  • Stage four: Redon - Fougeres, 150.4 km

Live Reporting

Steve Sutcliffe

  1. DSM move to the front of the peloton. they want to get things moving. Lotto Soudal want the exact opposite. They are being disruptive and as uncooperative as possible.

  2. Remarkably Pierre-Luc Perichon has still got a 23-second gap on the main group.

  3. Brent van Moer is going full throttle. He's got the equivalent of a one-kilometre gap.

    What a ride.

  4. Lotto Soudal position a rider at the front of the peloton to disrupt any attempt to chase their Belgian rouleur Brent van Moer.

  5. Come on chaps? Nobody fancy this?

  6. A touch of caution and a natural reluctance for any of the sprint trains to form too early is allowing Brent van Moer to eke out his lead. It's up to a minute.

  7. Brent van Moer's put 15 seconds into the peloton. He's got 45 seconds, still it'd be some dig to win from here.

  8. Counter from Pierre-Luc Perichon, his tank must be running close to empty now.

    He's barely uttered a word to Brent van Moer all day, who decides to go blast off and go solo.

  9. Ineos Grenadiers are all over this. Luke Rowe takes a hairy corner and then looks round to check that Geraint Thomas and Richard Carapaz are still safely on his wheel.

    Looking good chaps.

  10. The peloton is starting to shift now.

    Meanwhile, Brent van Moer tries to dislodge Pierre-Luc Perichon from his wheel.

    The time gap is diminishing by the second. Surely all in vain.

  11. Valentin Madouas moves up towards the front of the peloton at the head of the Groupama-FDJ train.

    They are all working to give Arnaud Demare a shout of a third stage win at the Tour.

  12. Brilliant shot on TV looking out over the shoulders of the two-man break.

    Back down the road the peloton is firmly in view.

  13. Intermediate sprint results

    1. Brent Van Moer, 20 points2. Pierre-Luc Perichon, 17 pts3. Mark Cavendish, 15 pts4. Michael Morkov, 13 pts5. Nacer Bouhanni, 11 pts6. Michael Matthews, 10 pts7. Andre Greipel, 9 pts8. Peter Sagan, 8 pts9. Sonny Colbrelli, 7 pts10. Bryan Coquard, 6 pts11. Arnaud Demare, 5 pts12. Connor Swift, 4 pts13. Luka Mezgec, 3 pts14. Julian Alaphilippe, 2 pts15. Jacopo Guarnieri, 1 pt

  14. The intermediate sprint has been and gone but to be honest with 30km to go there'll (the sprint teams) all be hanging around at the front now. Now point surrendering a decent spot.

    As yet no major stresses on the group.

  15. 'I've got the best team in the world'

    Now let's hear from Mark Cavendish, this is what he had to say before racing got under way: "It is so unfortunate for Caleb [Ewan], having a broken collarbone. I was really looking forward to going head-to-head with him.

    "He's a mini-me, I'm a big fan of him, and I tell you – the Tour de France would have wanted to see me and him going head-to-head. So that's a real shame for the Tour de France and the public here.

    "As I keep saying, I've got the best team in the world, Deceuninck-Quick-Step. The best lead-out guys, the best equipment to do it on.

    "And yeah last time we were in Fougeres I won in 2015 and that was with this same team. It was my last Tour de France stage win for Quick-Step, and hopefully it can be my first again today."

  16. Get Involved

    #bbccycling

    Flemming: TdF-riders are something else getting on a bike looking like Roglic is today. Maybe I should just grit my teeth a bit more the next time I stub my toe instead of rolling around for 10 minutes.

    Matt: Do we have the old Cav back...?

    You never know Matt.

  17. Mark CavendishGetty Images

    Peter Sagan is almost acting as Mark Cavendish's shadow for the intermediate sprint.

    There's no stopping Cav there though. That was worked to perfection with Michael Morkov leading him out. He was easing off at the line.

    Not a bad opening salvo.

  18. Lotto Soudal's Brent van Moer is out of his saddle to surge away from Pierre-Luc Perichon (Cofidis) at the intermediate sprint.

    That was quite a kick from the Belgian but nowt to what's coming surely.

  19. Who can you count on, if not your bro?

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  20. Incidentally, on Mark Cavendish...

    Well he has history at Fougeres, doesn't he?

    He won stage seven at the same finish back in 2015 but he'll have to see off plenty of the new breed of sprinters to rekindle that winning feeling.

    With Caleb Ewan having abandoned, Groupama-FDJ's French speedster Arnaud Demare is probably considered as the favourite to win today.