Peter Sagan Wins 2017 Tour De France Stage 3, Geraint Thomas Holds Yellow Jersey

Peter Sagan of Bora–Hansgrohe claimed victory in dramatic fashion on Stage 3 of the 2017 Tour de France on Monday as Team Sky's Geraint Thomas remained in the yellow jersey.

An uphill finish to a long day in Longwy, France, ruled out most of the sprinters, and Sagan was always a likely winner given his incredible pedigree.

He looked supremely comfortable as he moved to the front past an attacking Richie Porte with around 300 metres to go to the line, but an unclipped pedal in the closing seconds almost lost him the stage.

Impressively, though, Sagan was able to regain control almost instantly and hold off Sunweb's Michael Matthews, Quick-Step Floors' Dan Martin and BMC's Greg Van Avermaet on the line.

The Inner Ring provided the top 10 finishers from Stage 3:

Meanwhile, defending champion Chris Froome moved into second in the general classification, per Team Sky:

Team Sky provided the profile for the the 212.5 kilometres of action, which began in Verviers, Belgium:

A frantic opening to the day saw some initial attacks fail before eventually ending with a group of six making a breakaway stick.

Nils Politt, Adam Hansen, Romain Hardy, Nathan Brown, Frederik Backaert and Romain Sicard separated from the peloton and built up a lead of around two minutes.

The sextet looked ripe to be caught as they were never allowed to get too far ahead, but with 60 kilometres to go Lotto-Soudal's Thomas De Gendt led a break from the peloton and took Lilian Calmejane of Direct Energie and Pierre-Louis Perrichon of Fortuneo with him.

Former yellow jersey wearer Jens Voigt was delighted with the move:

The trio caught the breakaway in no time and, thanks to their fresher legs, moved to the front of the race, with only Fortuneo's Hardy able to go with them.

Frenchman Calmejane looked the strongest of the front group and dropped his fellow three riders just over 20 kilometres from the line.

A stage win for the 24-year-old looked highly unlikely, though, given the climbing at the end of the run, and so it proved.

The peloton swallowed him with just under 10 kilometres of the stage remaining. 

There was much jostling for position as the final climb began, and at one point it looked as though it could be a GC battle at the head as Porte broke to the front. Alberto Contador, Thomas and Froome were also well placed.

However, Sagan eventually appeared and cruised to the front, and even his pedal problem as he pushed into the sprint could not prevent the Slovak from winning an eighth stage on the Tour de France.