Hang on, we've got a break!

Phew. Hope everyone has got their breath back after that intermediate sprint?

If you enjoyed that, you'll love the category four climb at Cote de Demu, which is only about 60km away.

Mark Cavendish is up there too... so is Mads Pedersen, but it is Jasper Philipsen who takes the maximum 20 points that were up for grabs, and the Belgian moves into the lead in that category.

It looks like Jasper Philipsen wants maximum points from this intermediate sprint. His Alpecin-Deceuninck team-mates, including Mathieu van der Poel, are up at the front of the peloton.

Van der Poel led Philipsen to the stage win yesterday. Will he do the same here? Only 1km to go...

Here's where things stand in the points category as we approach this intermediate sprint, where we will see a welcome bit of actual racing.

French rider Victor Lafay is level on points with yesterday's stage winner, Jasper Philipsen, but Lafay is in green because he is higher up the General Classification.

1. Victor Lafay (Cofidis) 80 pts

2. Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) 80

3. Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) 52

4. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) 42

5. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) 39

Image source, EPA

Speaking of the Yates, the last time a stage of the Tour de France did not feature a breakaway (like this one, currently) was stage five of the 2020 race, which was a memorable day for them.

Wout van Aert was first over the line, in Privas, but the yellow jersey ended up being given to Adam Yates for the first time after Julian Alaphilippe of France was penalised for taking an illegal feed in the final 20km.

I'd take any form of excitement right now, although we do have an intermediate sprint coming up in a few kilometres time and the green jersey contenders will be interested in that.

Shall I wake you up when we get there?

This is nice. Not sure where the Yates' family camper van is parked today, but if the stage carries on like this, Adam and Simon's mum and dad could probably hop on a bike themselves and ride along with their twins if they wanted to.

So, the Tour crossed the border from Spain into the bottom-left corner of France during Monday's stage three.

Stage four started in Dax and will end in Nogaro, on the town's motor-racing circuit - which should be good fun, as long as everyone speeds up a bit.

Fans have packed the roadside so far, and have a good look at their heroes, because of the extremely slow pace.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Britain's Adam Yates, who is in the race leader's yellow jersey for a third-straight day today, speaking to ITV Sport about stage three: "It was a nice day - for us it was more about recovering a little bit, as much as possible. It's not an easy thing to do in the Tour de France so every chance we get to recover we will, and today was one of those days.

"So we took it easy and even in the sprint at the end we tried to stay back, stay out of the crashes and all the carnage and I think we did a good job.

"The first sprint day is always tense but actually it's quite nice, the roads the last few days have been really nice - wide roads, not a crazy amount of furniture, and it definitely helps to limit the crashes and the carnage."

Yates will be hoping for another 'nice' day today, with the sprinters' teams doing all the work to control any breakaways - if there are ever any - then he can just try to stay out of trouble.

There has just been a brief split in the peloton by the way, but they are all back together again.

Image source, EPA

Today is going to be mostly about Cav, or at least it will be later... but here's a quick reminder of where we're at in the overall standings.

Today is the third day in the yellow jersey for Britain's Adam Yates, who has a six-second lead over his twin brother Simon and two-time winner Tadej Pogacar.

General classification after stage three

1. Adam Yates (GB/UAE Team Emirates) 13hrs 52mins 33secs

2. Tadej Pogacar (Slo/UAE Team Emirates) +6secs

3. Simon Yates (GB/Team Jayco-AlUla) same time

4. Victor Lafay (Fra/Cofidis) +12secs

5. Wout van Aert (Bel/Jumbo-Visma) +16secs

6. Jonas Vingegaard (Den/Jumbo-Visma) +17secs

Image source, EPA

Ok, ok, so this stage hasn't really got started yet... but who cares when I can show you the first pictures of sunflower fields from this year's Tour.

Everyone's happy now, right? We just need some French farmers to sort out some massive hay bales in the shape of a bike and it won't matter if there is no serious racing for the next two hours. I will just post pictures instead.

Image source, EPA

Image source, Tour de France

Here's the profile of today's stage. It's not totally flat but it's still flat enough for the Tour's sprinters to be licking their lips about the way it will end.

Monday saw the first bunch-sprint finish of this year's Tour and Jasper Philipsen took the glory, after a brilliant lead-out by Mathieu van der Poel, and then a wait while the race commissaires reviewed video footage of the final few metres, which saw Wout van Aert run out of room near the barriers.

Cav? He finished sixth but he was still smiling as he crossed the line.

Today's 181.8km stage will suit the sprinters even more because it has only one categorised climb, so we can expect fun as the fast-men fight it out and go flat-out in a fierce finish once again.

It should be... fantastic.

Erm, not a lot.

Usually these flat stages see a breakaway bunch go clear early on, mainly to grab some TV exposure for their sponsors, with the gap controlled by the sprinters' teams before they inevitable reel the escapees a few kilometres before the end, ready for the bunch sprint.

It's a bit formulaic, but it keeps things interesting, because there's always a slim chance the break might stay clear, although it very rarely does.

Today, though, we haven't had a breakaway yet, more than 40km into the stage. The peloton is travelling very slowly too... in fact, I'd say they are trundling.

Don't expect to see any of these bits of the race on Netflix any time soon...

Yep, hello and welcome to stage four of the Tour de France.

It didn't quite happen for Mark Cavendish yesterday but the Manx Missile will have another shot at breaking Eddy Merckx's record for Tour stage wins today, when the race reaches Nogaro... well, if it ever gets there.

It's been quite a slow start to the stage, to say the least...

You know the drill, right?

Image source, Reuters