{"id":45560,"date":"2025-07-08T07:17:31","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T14:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=45560"},"modified":"2025-07-08T08:21:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:21:17","slug":"tdf-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=45560","title":{"rendered":"TDF 3"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;\">\n  <thead style=\"background-color: #4CAF50; color: white;\">\n    <tr>\n      <th>Stage<\/th>\n      <th>Date<\/th>\n      <th>Start > Finish<\/th>\n      <th>Type<\/th>\n      <th>Distance (km)<\/th>\n      <th>Distance (mi)<\/th>\n      <th>Winner<\/th>\n    <\/tr>\n  <\/thead>\n  <tbody>\n    <tr style=\"background-color: #f2f2f2;\">\n      <td>3<\/td>\n      <td>Mon 07\/07<\/td>\n      <td>Valenciennes > Dunkerque<\/td>\n      <td>Flat<\/td>\n      <td>178.3<\/td>\n      <td>110.8<\/td>\n      <td>Tim Merlier (SOQ)<\/td>\n    <\/tr>\n  <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tour de France 2025 Stage 3: Merlier Triumphs in Chaotic Sprint Finish<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Stage 3 of the 2025 Tour de France, a 178.3 km flat run from Valenciennes to Dunkerque, delivered high drama as <strong>Tim Merlier<\/strong> (Soudal-QuickStep) claimed victory in a thrilling, crash-marred sprint on July 7, 2025. Merlier narrowly outpaced <strong>Jonathan Milan<\/strong> (Lidl-Trek) in a photo finish, with Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) rounding out the podium. The stage, designed for sprinters, turned chaotic in the final 3 km with multiple crashes, most notably forcing green jersey holder <strong>Jasper Philipsen<\/strong> (Alpecin-Deceuninck) to abandon after a severe incident post-intermediate sprint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mathieu van der Poel<\/strong> (Alpecin-Deceuninck) retained the yellow jersey, while Milan inherited the green sprint points jersey. <strong>Tim Wellens<\/strong> (UAE Team Emirates) claimed the polka dot jersey after winning the sole climb at Mont Cassel, and <strong>Kevin Vauquelin <\/strong>(Ark\u00e9a-B&amp;B Hotels) held the white jersey for best young rider. Major GC contenders, including <strong>Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard<\/strong>, finished safely in the peloton, conserving energy for tougher stages ahead. The stage underscored the unpredictability of sprint finishes, with Merlier\u2019s composure securing his second career Tour stage win amidst the chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">? THIS is how tight it was between Tim Merlier and Jonathan Milan in that Stage 3 sprint finish ?? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mDwzycxUi8\">pic.twitter.com\/mDwzycxUi8<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cyclingontnt\/status\/1942251816227405851?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 7, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"fr\" dir=\"ltr\">Goodbye Amiens, stage 4 is underway ?<br><br>Au revoir Amiens, l&#39;\u00e9tape 4 est lanc\u00e9e ?<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TDF2025?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TDF2025<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gM4FBgFJde\">pic.twitter.com\/gM4FBgFJde<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Tour de France\u2122 (@LeTour) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LeTour\/status\/1942546245081522408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 8, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Mathieu van der Poel\u2019s yellow bike for today\u2026 ?<br><br>Will this be a winning bike? ? <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TDF2025?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TDF2025<\/a>\u00a0 <br><br>?: leon_van_bon <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zN0ggNzk2X\">pic.twitter.com\/zN0ggNzk2X<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Luk\u00e1\u0161 Ronald Luk\u00e1cs (@lucasaganronald) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lucasaganronald\/status\/1942458856346411045?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 8, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Mathieu van der Poel wore the yellow jersey during Stage 3 of the 2025 Tour de France because he was the overall race leader in the general classification (GC), despite Tim Merlier winning Stage 3. <strong>The yellow jersey is awarded to the rider with the lowest cumulative time across all stages<\/strong>, not necessarily the winner of the most recent stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stage Date Start > Finish Type Distance (km) Distance (mi) Winner 3 Mon 07\/07 Valenciennes > Dunkerque Flat 178.3 110.8 Tim Merlier (SOQ) Tour de France 2025 Stage 3: Merlier Triumphs in Chaotic Sprint Finish Stage 3 of the 2025 Tour de France, a 178.3 km flat run from Valenciennes to Dunkerque, delivered high drama [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28,8],"tags":[1622,1623],"class_list":{"0":"post-45560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-featured","7":"category-general","8":"tag-tdf","9":"tag-tdf2025","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45560"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45574,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45560\/revisions\/45574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}