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.

Forged in the rolling hills of the south of Scotland, Onley is most at home when the road gradient makes the legs strain and is based in the high mountains of Andorra. With the big behemoth mountain ranges, the Alps and Pyrenees, still to come there is opportunity to make a bright start to the Tour de France truly memorable.

Like on stage four, there are any number of riders who could find some joy in Vire Normandie today. Tadej Pogacar loves a climb and a stage win, particularly in yellow, and the 10% gradient on the final climb will appeal to him - if the GC teams control the stage, which UAE certainly tend to do whenever the big man has a victory in his sights.

America's three-time Tour de France winner has received the Congressional Gold Medal, an honor on par with the Presidential Medal Freedom.

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.

Remco Evenepoel is clearly the man to beat in stage five. The Olympic and world time trial champion was superb at the Dauphine where he took 20 seconds out of Jonas Vingegaard and was 48 seconds ahead of Tadej Pogacar. And with no Filippo Ganna or Stefan Bissegger after their stage one crashes it is hard to look beyond the big three.

Tadej Pogačar showed his sprinting skills by beating Mathieu Van der Poel in a dash to the line to win the hilly fourth stage of the Tour de France.

Tim Merlier speaking after winning stage three: "It was difficult to be in position in the battle before the last corner and I must say, my team did an incredible job to the last 5km and then the real battle started," said Merlier.

A three-week Grand Tour will always contain natural ebbs and flows, and, for much of Monday’s stage between Valenciennes and Dunkirk, it looked as if the peloton had declared an unofficial rest day, with the riders happy to cruise back towards the coast after a weekend of wind, rain and intensity.

The biggest race of the year has started: the Tour de France. On Saturday, July 5, the peloton started from Lille, with the race set to conclude three weeks later with the (not so) traditional finish in the French capital,