Tour de France Femmes: stage three updates on road to Montignac-Lascaux – live | Tour de France Femmes

50km to go: Today’s intermediate sprint takes place 25.8 km from the finish. Race leader Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) is the current holder of the green jersey for the points classification but as she is also the maillot jaiune, Ashleigh Moolman Pasio is in green today by dint of being second on points.

54km to go: Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon–SRAM) launches an attack off the front of the pack. The Polish rider is quickly caught and Julie Van De Velde remains out in front, hoovering up Queen of the Mountain points to prevent anyone else snaffling the polka-dot jersey from her teammate Yara Castelijn. The gap is just 22 seconds.

55km to go: Julie Van De Velde crests the final summit of the day, Anouska Koster leads the bunch up the climb but is beaten to the remaining point by the Austrian Christina Schweinberger. The gap is just 12 seconds.

56km to go: Julia Van De Velde leads the bunch by 33 seconds as the maillot jaune sits second in the peloton as they move on to the Côte de Saint-Robert, the final categorised climb of the day. There’s another stiffish uphill for everyone to negotiate just before the stage levels out for the sprint finish.

57km to go: Julie Van De Velde is first over the top and takes two Queen of the Mountains points. The Dutch rider Anouska Koster beats Yara Kastelijn to the remaining point.

60km to go: Currently wearing the polka-dot jersey, Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck) moves to the front of the bunch as they head up the first of two back-to-back climbs. Julie Van De Velde (Jumbo-Visma) attacks off the front and opens a gap of 17 seconds in one kilometre.

62km to go: Elizabeth Stannard (Zaaf) has suffered a mechanical and is trying to get back to the bunch as they approach the penultimate climb of the day, the Côtes des Andrieux. It’s 58km from the finish, 248m high and 2.6km in length. The average gradient is 4.1%.

68km to go: Today’s average speed? A fairly respectable 36.3km per hour so far.

70km to go: The bunch rolls through a designated waste disposal zone, with no end of riders chucking assorted bidons, wrappers and other detritus they might have about their persons towards the grass margins. Anything left behind by souvenir-hunting scavengers will be collected by the Tour organisers and disposed of appropriately so the countryside isn’t needlessly littered.

74km to go: We’re treated to one attack after another off the front of the bunch, with the riders of Lidl-Trek doing a lot of policing when it comes to closing them down. Nobody is being allowed to escape and Lidl-Trek will be hoping to keep things contained so they can lead their Italian rider Elisa Balsamo to a sprint finish.

77km to go: Alice Marie Arzuffi (Ceratizit) attacks off the front of the bunch but is unable to escape.

79km to go: WIth the stage shaping up to end in a sprint finish, the peloton is fairly tightly bunched. Race leader Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) is a conspicuous presence near the front in her yellow jersey.

82km to go: Kathrin Hammes has been caught by the bunch following her solo effort. The German earned herself seven QoM points during her breakaway but as things stand they won’t be enough to put her in the polka-dot jersey. Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck), who started today’s stage in the iconic garment, still leads the standings by a point.

Marianne Vos: The most successful woman in the sport spoke to Eurosport before today’s stage and was asked if she thought she might be in with a shout of winning today’s stage. “We want to be as offensive as possible,” said the Jumbo-Visma rider. “We want to try to make the race and we’ll see how that ends up. Hopefully we’ll be there with numbers to play the game.”

86km to go: Coryn Labecki has been reeled in by the peloton after going over the top of the Côte de L’Escurotte. The gap from the bunch to Hammes is down to 35 seconds.

88km to go: Not for the first time today, Jumbo-Visma’s Coryn Labecki has attacked off the front of the bunch and this time she has been reasonable successful in getting away. The American is 1min 04sec behind Hammes, with the bunch a further 35 seconds back.

97km to go: The next climb is the category four Côte de L’Escurotte, located 89 kilometres from the finish line. It’s 391m high and 2.6km in length, with an average gradient of 4.7%.

103km to go: Kathrin Hammes remains out in front and her lead is out to 1min 10sec. She’s averaged a little over one kilometre an hour over the peloton in the opening 40 kilometres but is being kept on a fairly tight rein.

109km to go: The opening stages of this year’s Tour de France Femmes are proving more attritional than those in the men’s race and by close of play yesterday we’d already lost five riders.

This morning, Cofidis rider Spela Kern didn’t sign on at the start after suffering a thumb injury in a crash yesterday, while Uno-X rider Marte Berg Edseth abandoned not long after today’s start.

Lucie Jounier, who began the day as Lanterne Rouge after suffering from abdominal issues, was dropped on today’s first climb, and has also quit the race.

110km to go: As we join today’s stage, the riders have already put almost 40 kilometres of road behind them and Kathrin Hammes (EF Education-Tibco-SVB) has launched a lone breakaway. The German was first over the opening two climbs, picking up four Queen of the Mountains points in the process. Hammes has a lead of one minute over the chasing peloton.

Who’s in what jersey?

The top 10 on General Classification

Lippert triumphs amid rain-induced ‘chaos’

Stage three: Collonges-la-Rouge to Montignac-Lascaux (147km)