Stage 3 of the 2016 Tour de France saw the peloton stage a silent protest of sorts as they traversed the 223.5km from Granville to Angers at a sluggish 37kph pace. A lone attacker, Armindo Fonseca (Fortuneo-Vital Concept) went clear and was cheered on by his fans as the race passed near his home town. He was joined later by Thomas Voeckler (Direct Energie) who impatiently surged ahead with 80km to go.
The sprinters' teams finally came through in the end, bringing the race back together for a bunch sprint, led to the line by André Greipel (Lotto Soudal). But the German champion chose too big a gear and ran out of power before the line, and was pipped by Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data).
Cavendish moved into the lead of the points classification, while Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) continued in the race lead.
