Reigning Olympic time trial champion Remco Evenepoel should be a major factor in Caen as Tadej Pogacar, Mathieu van der Poel battle for overall lead.

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.

Olympic and world time trial champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) duly delivered on his stage favourite status on stage 5 of the Tour de France, powering to victory in the 33km time trial in Caen as Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) took yellow.