Tour de France 2024 | More history for Biniam Girmay as Eritrean takes first Tour de France stage win!

In the first bunch sprint of the 2024 Tour de France, Biniam Girmay has triumphed in a crash marred finale ahead of the likes of Arnaud De Lie and Fernando Gaviria.

After a frantic opening two stages of the 2024 Tour de France, it was perhaps somewhat expected for today to be a calmer day. When no one made a real effort to get themselves into the breakaway, a relaxed day in the peloton was assured.

There were still some points on offer during the day and Uno-X Mobility's Jonas Abrahamsen, who is leading both the Green Jersey and the King of the Mountains classifications at the start of the day, emerged from the bunch to take maximum points at the first climb, extending his lead in the polka-dot jersey.

As some pace finally started being injected into the peloton ahead of the second King of the Mountains point, Abrahamsen again came to the head of the race. This time though, the Norwegian wasn't allowed to simply roll over the line as Red Bull BORA - hansgrohe's Matteo Sobrero counter attacked to summit the climb in first position in his home region.

Following that climb, we actually had our first proper attacker of the day as well. TotalEnergies' Fabien Grellier moving clear solo from the peloton and quickly extending his lead up over the half a minute mark. In fact, with 50km to go on the final categorised climb of the day, the Frenchman's lead over the peloton was up to 54 seconds. Despite Grellier's best efforts however, with around 28km to go, he was swallowed up by an ever accelerating peloton.

After a somewhat sluggish day in the peloton, even with 15km to go the pace wasn't exactly furious. There was a slight raising of the stress levels with around 13km to go, as Soudal - Quick-Step's Casper Pedersen crashed with some resultant road rash. A few kilometres later, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale's Bruno Armirail was also on the deck. The biggest thing of note came with 6km to go however, when Jasper Philipsen's leadout, Mathieu van der Poel had an ill-timed mechanical.

In the fight for position at the front, Team DSM Firmenich-PostNL, Lidl-Trek and Uno-X Mobility among others were involved in a very fierce battle. With just over 2km to go there was a massive crash near the front with a number of Israel - Premier Tech riders being brought down. Heading into the Flamme Rouge, Intermarche-Wanty were on the front.

Once the sprints opened however, it was Mads Pedersen who was on the front but at the line it was Biniam Girmay who took the win, ahead of Fernando Gaviria and Arnaud De Lie.