Sam Bennett has become the first Irishman to wear the green jersey at the Tour de France since Sean Kelly in 1989 after finishing third in today's fift h stage.

The Tipperary man finished just behind stage winner Wout van Aert and Cees Boll but ahead of rival Peter Sagan, who was fourth on the 183km trip from Gap to Privas.

Having also won the intermediate sprint today, Bennett (123 points) moved clear of Sagan (114) in the points classification.

Bennett, desperate for a stage win of his own, could not match the Belgian's pace on the drag up to the line, but the green jersey, which Kelly won four times and was also worn by '87 Tour winner Stephen Roche, will be ample consolation.

"It's special for me to be the third Irishman to wear the green jersey," Bennett said. "I will do everything I can to keep it."

"I'm honoured to wear (green) at least once and I’m really happy that happened today. It’s hard to go for stages and the green jersey – today I was so focused on the green I almost forgot to really, really try to win.

"I’ve never had such mixed feelings in my career. I’m really happy to have green but sad to have lost the stage. But I did everything I could. In the last two kilometres I didn’t have the legs to sprint, but I’m pretty happy with my performance in the end."

The sprint finish meant there should have been no change to the general classification but Bennett's Deceuninck-QuickStep team-mate Julian Alaphilippe was penalised 20 seconds for an illegal feed, which means Mitchelton-Scott's Adam Yates takes over the yellow jersey.

Television pictures showed Alaphilippe taking a water bottle with 17.8km of the stage remaining, in breach of rules on fuelling inside the final 20km.

"It's a bit disappointing," said Bennett of the Frenchman's penalty. "It’s a bit of the highs and lows today. We thought we’d have yellow and green but unfortunately we don’t have it now.

Yates, who becomes the ninth Briton to wear the maillot jaune, said: "If I'm honest I don't think anyone wants to take a jersey like this but I guess we'll wear it tomorrow.

"Tomorrow I was looking to try to take the jersey anyway so we'll go in with the same tactics, try and win the stage and see what happens."

The victory for Van Aert was another feather in the cap for the powerful Jumbo-Visma squad after he did so much to help set up Primoz Roglic's stage win a day earlier on the climb to Orcieres-Merlette. 

Zoglic is just three seconds behind Yeats with Alaphilippe now 16 back.

Dan Martin finished 137th, 4'50 behind the leaders, while Nicolas Roche was among the last to finish, 7'04 further back, meaning he tumbles 22 places to 44th but is still the leading Irishman in the GC.