Julien Alaphilippe was penalized 20 seconds by Detuning-Quick-Step on Wednesday for taking Bidon in the last 20km of stage 5 of the Tour de France.

In an otherwise uneventful day, this last-minute development left Alaphilippe waiting under the podium for confirmation that he had dropped out of the yellow jersey he had held since his second stage win in Nice on Sunday.

Television footage showed Alaphilippe reaching out with his right hand to snatch the bidon from Team Soigner on the right side of the road with just over 17km to go, making it clear he was guilty, at least according to the UCI rule book.

But in this case, instead of dropping down the GC standings unnoticed, as he would have if he had been further down the order, the Frenchman's infraction cost him the overall lead in the world's biggest race.

Alaphilippe was realistic about the loss of the jersey he held for two weeks last year, telling France Télévisions: "I am waiting for confirmation. Apparently, I took a feed in an unauthorized area. This is a 20-second penalty, so the yellow jersey will be worn by Yates. If that's the case, that's the way it's going to be. It's the judges' decision and there's nothing I can do about it."

After unexpectedly losing the yellow jersey, Dečuninck-Quickstep could at least take the green jersey. Bennett's fast acceleration in the closing laps put him in third place, making him the first Irishman to lead the points chase since Sean Kelly took the green jersey for the fourth and final time in 1989.

But Bennett questioned the events surrounding Alaphilippe: "I heard after the finish. I don't know what happened. I thought there would be yellows and greens today, but unfortunately there weren't."

The Irish rider came to the Tour looking for a stage win, but won the intermediate sprint on stage 5 to finish third and move to the top of the points chase. I'm honored to wear it at least once," he said. I'm happy to wear it today, but it's hard to go for the stage and the green."

In the race itself, there was not a single breakaway, and Alaphilippe described stage 5 as "a very long, very boring stage and a very nervous finale."

"I had to stay focused to defend the jersey and I had to go for the stage win with Sam [Bennett]," he said. But tomorrow [Thursday] I'll pick myself up and we won't talk about it anymore."

But on Wednesday evening, the Tour de France spoke of little else.