Peter Sagan starts Tour de France Stage 3 in yellow

Mark Cavendish of Dimension Data grabbed his second stage win of the 2016 Tour de France on Monday, beating Lotto Soudal’s Andre Greipel in one of the closest finishes the Tour has seen in years.

On reflection, Cavendish was found to have ended narrowly ahead of Greipel, drawing him level with French great and five-time Tour de France victor Hinault on 28 stage wins at the Grand Tour.

There was initial confusion at the end as it looked Greipel had just about held on for the win.

Cavendish was wearing the points classification’s green jersey on stage three on behalf of leader Sagan, but his victory has taken him to the top of the standings.

Tinkoff rider Sagan beat Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx-QuickStep) in an uphill sprint to the finish in Cherbourg to collect his fifth Tour stage win – and first since 2013.

Greipel took charge of the sprint but Cavendish tucked in behind before picking his moment to launch a powerful attack on the finish line.

“I normally know when I win and lose a photo-finish and I thought I had it but you just never know”, explained Cavendish.

Yellow jersey holder and world champion Peter Sagan, who on Sunday said the modern peloton was “crazy”, believes this trend is making racing risky. The Fortuneo-Vital Concept rider was the first attacker of the day and he built an 11-minute lead over a peloton that rode at snail’s pace.

Unfortunately, the two men were always destined to be captured by a sprint-team led peloton, and the catch finally came in the final 10km before Cavendish roared to victory.

“Today was a very relaxing day for us because in the breakaway there was only one rider”, said Sagan.

“I saw a bar but afterwards there was no time”.

The Frenchman did not seem fazed by spending much of the race on his own, leading it solo as the stage travelled through his home province of Brittany.

The sedate rhythm was at least to some people’s taste.

The Tour de France is the biggest cycling race in the world. “People are happy”, he said.

Greipel started celebrating, raising his left finger to the sky, but then quickly took it down.

After that it was up to Cavendish to put on another show.