Racing

Tour de France Daily | Stage 3 | Saving our strength

Tomorrow is a big chance for our squad

July 7, 2025

Our mission for stage 3 of the 2025 Tour de France was to hide in the peloton and save our strength.

It was always going to be a bunch sprint, and our sprinter, Marijn van den Berg, is still recovering from his stage 1 crash. We have to pick our battles. Today, Marijn was in the running for our lowest average power contest. That takes serious skill and shows how good he is at moving through the peloton.

The Tour still averaged almost 42 kilometers per hour, as the race pushed into a head wind across Nord-Pas de Calais from Valenciennes to the Atlantic coast in Dunkerque. Marijn and his teammates surfed wheels, hopping into the drafts of other riders to move forward and stay at the front of the pack. They didn’t waste a pedal stroke, avoided all of the crashes, and came across the line safe and sound at the back of the bunch sprint.

They chugged their Amacx cherry juice down and rolled straight to the bus to recover for tomorrow.

Stage 4 is a great chance for our squad. With five tough climbs packed into the final 50 kilometers, the race course could reward the breakaway or late-race attackers. Our squad will be looking to put all of the energy they saved today to use on the road from Amiens Métropole to Rouen.

First, read our riders thoughts from the finish of stage three of the Tour de France.

Alex Baudin

Tour bunch sprints are even crazier than normal bunch sprints. The stakes are higher and obviously all of the sprinters are super motivated to take the win. Today was especially dangerous with the headwind, but luckily everyone from the team is safe.

It was quite an easy day. I got to talk to all of my French mates in the bunch. It was nice to have a chat to make the day go by faster. We had the chance to recover and now we’re looking forward to the next stages.

Marijn van den Berg

Not much happened today. It was kind of relaxed. There was a crash just before three kilometers to go, but I missed it. I was not going to sprint today anyway, so I took it easy in the end.

Neilson Powless

It was a chill day for us. Tim Wellens went for some KOM points. I got stuck behind a little crash on the climb where he attacked. Apart from that, everyone stayed in the peloton. Nobody could see any way to win the race apart from a sprint finish. So, we just rode along in one big bunch all day. That was nice. We were happy to have a bit of an easier day. There probably won't be too many of those.

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