“I thought we were making the sport safer” – Armstrong and Wiggins question Tour de France organisers after stage 3

Stage 3 of the 2025 Tour de France was billed as a flat, uneventful day, it turned out to be anything but. On the latest episode of The Move podcast, Lance Armstrong, Bradley Wiggins, and George Hincapie dug into a stage packed with drama for the sprinters, and even some concerns for the GC men.

The biggest talking point was Jasper Philipsen’s crash during the intermediate sprint. Armstrong was blunt about the cost of sprinting at this level.

“If you haven’t broken your collarbone racing a bicycle, then you haven’t raced enough 'cause it just always happens,” Armstrong said. “He landed straight... Normally you could get an arm out, you get something to break the fall, right down on that right shoulder.”

The incident raised immediate questions about who was at fault. Biniam Girmay’s teammate and Bryan Coquard were both involved in the incident that sent Philipsen crashing. But after reviewing the footage, the crew wasn’t quick to assign blame.

“You have to look at where this started. I don’t think anyone’s to blame,” Armstrong said. “It’s an occupational hazard of what those guys are doing.”

Tim Merlier came away with the win, but not without some late-stage improvisation. According to Hincapie, it was one of the more impressive finishes he’s seen.

“He essentially came up on the side of the peloton on his own and seemed to be going 10k an hour faster than the lead-out train,” Hincapie said. “He didn’t even need his teammates there.”

Armstrong added: “He was right there. He knew. It was tight, but he knew.”

While Merlier won, and now leads the green jersey competition, the conversation turned to Jonathan Milan, whose raw power and unusual sprinting form have made him a talking point, “He looks like he’s all over the bike... head all over the place, sitting up high, a big guy,” Armstrong noted.

Wiggins added context to Milan’s pedigree: “This is a guy who is the world record holder for the 4,000 meter individual pursuit which is sub four minutes for four kilometers.”

Crashes weren't confined to Philipsen. Several riders went down, sparking concern over the finish layout and safety measures. Wiggins questioned the route design, “I thought we were making the sport safer… That finish straight today was something I haven’t seen for a while,” he said.

Wiggins recalled when the Tour organizers used to take more proactive steps, “There was a time when ASO would remove road furniture in the last five or six km… We seem to have got away from that.”

Another incident involved Remco Evenepoel, who went down in a crash just two days before the time trial after having already having a mixed start to the Tour. The team’s day was mixed, a stage win from Merlier, but bad luck for their GC contender. Hincapie speculated on the team mood, “The morale is going to be a lot higher at the dinner table tonight.”

Wiggins wasn’t so sure. “Their man for the GC is lying on the floor… There’s no cohesion from the sort of split in terms of their objectives.”

He drew comparisons to Team Sky’s 2012 Tour, where internal friction boiled over, “That caused a lot of friction within the team… Cav wanting to win stages and green,” Wiggins recalled. “At some point, riders like me, I intervened and said I do the lead-outs… acting as mediator.”

That led into a detailed breakdown of Mark Cavendish’s sprint setup, a rare insight into the mechanics of the dramatic sprints we see at the Tour: “Cav would always say to us, ‘You do your job. I’ll find you. Do not look back for me,’” Wiggins said. “He would be calculating all the time, but he would somehow always find you.”