Reigning Olympic time trial champion Remco Evenepoel should be a major factor in Caen as Tadej Pogacar, Mathieu van der Poel battle for overall lead.

In a Grand Tour, riders are pushed to the limits of what is physically possible, and to achieve this, riders and teams naturally explore those limits. Every day, it is up to the race jury of the Tour de France to determine and impose penalties for any rule violations,

Evenepoel, the reigning time trial Olympic and world champion, was expected to win the stage in the absence of time trial specialists — Filippo Ganna and Stefan Bissegger, who both crashed and exited the race on the first day of the Tour last week.