"To be able to enjoy this is great" - Richard Carapaz snatches the yellow jersey from Tadej Pogacar

Stage 3 of the Tour de France 2024, although decided by a sprint that ended with Biniam Girmay winning ahead of Fernando Gaviria, led to another change of the Maillot Jaune, which now adorns the shoulders of Richard Carapaz.

The EF Education-EasyPost rider, who started the day in 4th position in the general classification behind Tadej Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard, takes the lead of the Grande Boucle thanks to countback. Finishing 14th on stage 3, the Ecuadorian has the lowest accumulated stage positions of the four leaders stuck on the same time and thus, Carapaz is the third yellow jersey of this edition of the Tour de France after Romain Bardet and Tadej Pogacar.

"It's a dream. The respect I have for the Tour de France, I have always prepared for this. To be able to enjoy something like this is very big, immensely big," began the former Giro d'Italia winner's post-stage reflections afterwards.

In a key strategic decision by EF Education-EasyPost for Richard Carapaz to finish the day in the yellow jersey, sprinter Marijn van den Berg was ordered to abstain from the final sprint. The race leader also talks about it. "We knew we had a chance, we knew it was the first sprint, and we knew there were a lot of nerves and there could be several crashes. The team did very well, they dropped me a kilometre from the finish and with Merijn (van den Berg), who did the final straight, he was incredible," concludes Carapaz, full of praise for his teammates sacrifice.

As such, Carapaz will be the yellow jersey of the Tour de France 2024 in the first mountain stage, which will have on the menu the mythical ascent of the Col du Galibier (23 km at 5.1%). Whether he can hold on to it should the likes of Pogacar and Vingegaard begin to attack remains to be seen however.