Wout van Aert’s scintillating form since the season restarted showed no signs of abating as he sprinted to a fine victory on stage five.

The Belgian – who has already triumphed at Strade Bianche and Milano-Sanremo since racing resumed – latched onto Cees Bol’s lead-out train in Privas and then edged past the Team Sunweb rider before crossing the line half a wheel ahead of his rival.

That performance made it two Team Jumbo-Visma stage wins from two after Primoz Roglic’s success on Tuesday, and Sam Bennett’s disappointment at finishing in third place will have been tempered as the Deceuninck – Quick-Step star moved into the green jersey.

Arguably the main talking point of the day though, came after the stage when Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck – Quick-Step) was given a 20-second penalty for taking an illegal feed inside the last 20km. That meant the Frenchman was stripped of his yellow jersey and demoted to 16th place in the overall standings - 16 seconds down Adam Yates (Mitchelton-SCOTT), who is the new race leader.

Elsewhere, Benoit Cosnefroy (AG2R La Mondiale) extended his advantage in the mountains classification by leading the peloton over the two classified climbs, and Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) lived to fight another day at the top of the young rider classification.

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