Hello and welcome to live coverage of stage 3 of the Tour de France, a lumpy 212.5km ride through Belgium, Luxembourg and into France from Verviers to Longwy.

Marcel Kittel, who is in green, didn't get in the mix for those remaining points at the sprint. It's worth adding that it was Nils Politt of Katusha who edged clear of the break to take the maximum 20 points before the peloton came through.

After the break passes the intermediate sprint, the battle begins behind as FDJ move to the front to lead out their man Arnaud Demare. Katusha, Lotto and Quick-Step are looking to get involved as well, while Swift, Colbrelli and Cavendish are in the mix as well. And it's Cavendish who gets some competitive sprinting in his legs by taking the points ahead of Colbrelli, Swift, Sagan and Greipel - the last two riders clashing shoulders, but not maliciously.

Just three kilometres to go now until the sprint, so expect the teams of the sprinters to start jostling for position. The break will take the lion's share of the points, but there will still be nine points up grabs for the rider who takes seventh place - dropping down to 1 point for the 15th rider. Every little helps.

Laurens ten Dam is on the front of the pack now for Team Sunweb, who will hope their man Michael Matthews can spring into action today. The Australian finished ninth in the sprint yesterday - one place ahead of his big rival for today's finish, Peter Sagan. Talking of whom, his older brother and Bora team-mate Juraj, the Slovakian national champion, is tucked in just behind the Dutchman. The gap is down to 1:40 with the intermediate sprint coming up.

Alejandro Valverde has posted a video of himself on his hospital bed 36 hours after an operation to mend his broken kneecap. The Spanish veteran sustained the injury after slamming into the barriers following a fall on the wet roads in Dusseldorf during the opening time trial on Saturday. His loss will be a big blow to Movistar and the Colombian Nairo Quintana. Heal up quick, Alejandro!

The riders have just crossed the border and entered the Dutchy of Luxembourg with the gap still at two minutes. We'll have the intermediate sprint and two climbs in Luxembourg before the race enters France for the first time in this year's race.

Bora-Hansgrohe have one man on the front of the pack - ahead of the Sky train - as they look to control things for their man, Peter Sagan. The world champion has had a subdued start to the Tour, only mustering 10th place yesterday in the first sprint. This kind of punchy uphill finish suits him better, so expect more from the Slovakian showman in Longwy.

The gap creeps over two minutes for the first time in this stage - so far, the peloton has kept the six leaders on a bit of a leash. Richie Porte, who conceded 37 seconds to his big rival Chris Froome on Saturday's time trial, is currently eating something in the middle of the peloton.

Backaert is not the only Tour debutant in this break: Hardy, Politt and Brown are all riding their first Grande Boucle. The other two are much more experienced: Sicard is riding his fourth Tour and ninth Grand Tour, while Hansen is famously riding his 18th consecutive Grand Tour. The Australian has ridden 25 in total, of which eight have been the Tour. With stage wins in both the Giro and Vuelta, the 36-year-old now just needs an elusive Tour stage win to complete the collection.

Belgian Frederik Backaert, who is in this break, is quite an interesting chap. The Belgian is actually a farmer by trade - and right up to the Wednesday before the Grand Depart of his debut Tour, he was milking cows, ploughing fields and cleaning farm machinery. "I don’t see it as work, it’s just two hobbies. It’s good if you can make your hobbies your passion and your passion your work," Backaert told Rouleur. "I feel like I’ve never worked a day in my life: not on the bike at least, sometimes in the farm though."

After such a flat opening road stage, it's nice to see some rolling terrain - just as it's rather pleasant to see the sunshine. The road edges uphill towards the intermediate sprint, which is followed by back-to-back climbs; then we get some more rolling terrain ahead of the final climb climbs before the finish. The six leaders have 1:55 so it's keeping stable.

A reminder that the peloton is down to 195 riders following the opening day withdrawals of Spaniards Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Ion Izaguirre (Bahrain-Merida), and yesterday's withdrawal of Australia's Luke Durbridge (Orica-Scott). All three riders crashed heavily on the same wet corner in the Dusseldorf time trial - and while the Spanish duo were taken to hospital straight away, Durbridge started yesterday's stage but called it a day after 25km owing to problems with his ankle ligaments.

We should say that Germany's Nils Politt is the virtual maillot jaune: the Katusha-Alpecin rider is 41 seconds down on GC - and this six-man break now has a lead of two minutes over the pack.

Completing our jersey round-up, Stefan Kung of BMC is in the white jersey. The Swiss rider is making his debut Tour and finished second in Saturday's time trial. He leads the youth standings by 20 seconds over Pierre Latour of FDJ and 24 seconds over Andrey Lutsenko of Astana.

By winning yesterday's stage, Marcel Kittel zipped into the lead of the green jersey points classification. The German has 63pts with Arnaud Demare on 38pts, Andre Greipel on 25pts, Sonny Colbrelli on 24pts and Mark Cavendish with 22pts. Today's finish is a punchy uphill sprint, though, and so it may open the door for someone like Peter Sagan - the man we usually see in green around this time of year. That said, Demare knows how to get up a steep incline, so don't rule out the French national champion from FDJ today.

The break has left the motor racing circuit but the peloton is still motoring along, with Quick-Step Floors' Julien Vermote on the front ahead of the white Sky train. The gap is 1:45 for the six leaders.

The race is now doing a circuit of the Spa Francochamps motor racing circuit, which is a bit of a novelty. We've seen some stage finishes on similar tracks in recent years - and on airport runways - but I can't recall laps of a circuit during a stage before.

That point puts Brown in second place in the KOM standings; his team-mate Phinney, who was part of that four-man break yesterday, leads after taking one point over both the fourth-category climbs yesterday. So, Cannondale are all over the polka dots for now.

Nathan Brown jumps clear of the other escapees to take the single point over the top of the Cat.4 Cote de Sart. Hardy tried to chase but didn't have enough in the tank, so Brown protects the polka dot jersey lead of his team-mate Taylor Phinney.

The leading six riders are: Adam Hansen (Lotto Soudal), Nils Politt (Katusha), Romain Hardy (Fortuneo-Oscaro), Frederik Backaert (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), Nathan Brown (Cannondale-Drapac) and Romain Sicard (Direct Energie).

After the rain that dampened the Grand Depart - but not the spirits of the mass of German fans who came out to watch - it's a sunny day in Belgium today. The riders will be pretty pleased with that. Meanwhile, the riders have started the first cateogrised climb of the day.