"The first sprint day is always intense" - Adam Yates safely survives the chaos to ensure another day in yellow at the Tour de France

The first relatively quiet day as far as the general classification goes, stage 3 was no less stressful for the overall leader Adam Yates after a chaotic finale.

"It was a beautiful day," the winner of stage 1 said in his post-stage interview. "For us it was about recovering, as much as possible. This was one of the few days on which we were able to do that, although we still had to stay out of the crowd in the final."

The stage was eventually won by Alpecin-Deceuninck's Jasper Philipsen in a chaotic finale that needed a lengthy check by the race jury before Philipsen was confirmed as the winner.

In the opinion of Yates however, the course in the final few kilometres was laid out well. "The first sprint day is always intense, but the course is laid out well," he compliments. "That certainly helps, because that way you can limit the falls."