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.

Belgian Remco Evenepoel lived up to his favourite's tag in the individual time trial by winning stage five of the Tour de France on Wednesday, with defending champion Tadej Pogacar's second place enough to take hold of the leader's yellow jersey.

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.