The 188 kilometres flat route from Oinville-Sur-Montcient to Amilly was expected to be a stage for the sprinters, although splits in the peloton were a threat due to crosswinds.

A split occurred as the peloton approached 100km to go, but the groups came back together prior to the first of two bonus sprints during the stage.

Australia’s Matthews won the first bonus sprint to secure a three-second time bonus to close the gap to yesterday’s stage winner and race leader Sam Bennett of Ireland.

Matthews added two further seconds to his tally by finishing as the runner-up to Germany’s Andre Griepel in the second intermediate sprint, which came with 34 kilometres to the finish.

The stage, as anticipated, concluded with a sprint finish in in Amilly, with the favourites avoiding a late crash.

Bol emerged as the stage winner in a time of 4 hours 27min and 59sec, holding off Denmark’s Mads Pedersen, the 2019 world champion.

Matthews finished in third place, ahead of France’s Bryan Coquard and Bennett, which saw him move into the overall race lead, with the Team BikeExchange rider holding a four-second advantage over Pedersen.

Bennett and Bol are third and fourth in the standings, respectively, on the same time as Pedersen.

A 14.4 kilometre individual time trial is due to take place tomorrow in Gien.