Stage 3, 3 countries and a 3rd stage winner at the 2017 Tour. All of these are 100% fact unless Geraint Thomas ends up making our third statement “fake news”. Sad.

A rolling day in the saddle for the peloton as we leave Belgium and head towards Luxembourg. There is another 4th cat climb early on, so expect current KOM jersey holder Taylor Phinney to be in the mix during the morning break. He’ll be joined by a host of wildcard team riders who will be hoping to snare some airtime and the KOM jersey by the end of today, as there are 3x 4th cats and 1x 3rd cats before the final act up to the 3rd cat finish in Longwy.

The break will find it tough going to make a decent gap stick, as the terrain is lumpy, including a few sharp uncategorised climbs, and working in a small group to keep the pace high will be very difficult. The GC men will also be watching each other as time could well be lost due to a late attack or poor postioning, or an ill-timed puncture like Porte suffered on stage 2 last year.

At 3km to go there is a ‘lump’ in the profile, which is actually a bit punchier than the profile bellow suggests and this could be the scene where the winning move is launched. The nature of the final run in will be sure to rule out the sprinters, they will be saving their legs for Stage 4. The GC who lost time in the opening time trial might be keen to spring a late move here and try and grab back a few seconds, but they will be heavily marked by Sky. We could see Simon Yates, Dan Martin or Fabio Aru have a crack at pulling this type of move off, but it will be very tough to gain much time from Thomas and Froome here. All factors point towards a Puncheur taking the win here and there a plenty of them in the race!

The finish into Longwy is reminiscent to the old Amstel Gold finish up the Cauberg and the King of the Cauberg, Phillipe Gilbert has looked in vintage form this season. The Tour of Flanders and Amstel Gold race winner missed the rest of the Ardennes after tearing his kidney as a result of a crash during Amstel. He will have put a big red circle on this stage, the race actually rides through his hometown of Verviers at the start of this stage so an added incentive for him today.

Another Belgium one day rider that’s had a great 2017 so far is Greg van Avermaet. The Paris-Roubaix winner has a great uphill kick in a finish like this. He had a quiet June and didn’t trouble the scorers at the Tour de Suisse, but he will be hitting top gear again here.

Peter Sagan is again a favourite for today, such is his unparalleled talent. The climb to Longwy isn’t as severe as last year’s Stage 2 finish into Cherbourg and so we’d expect him to be fighting it out for at least a podium spot, if not the win.

We had Micheal Matthews down as an outsider for Stage 1, but this type of finish will also suit him like it did on Stage 6 of the 2014 Giro. He is still within touching distance of taking the yellow jersey, all be it a very slim chance with the climbing involved on Stage 5.

A few others that we’ll be keeping an eye out for in the final kms: Diego Ulissi can go very quick on a finish like this. Ben Swift has said that he feels the finish suits him and he needs a win for his new team, especially as Viviani is about to join Team UAE. Tim Wellens will almost certainly go from long for this and it will almost certainly be in vain. Over the last 12 months Fabio Felline has shown what a versatile rider he is, he will again look to go from long if he fancies this. Finally, Alexis Vuillermoz is another rider who needs a big result, he hasn’t had a major win since his 2015 Tour stage win on Stage 8, which had a similar finish to today.

Podium Prediction