Tour de France day one, le chaos, le crazy.
Philipsen wins tense, windy sprint, Rogic and Evenepoel lose time to top rivals. Wowza!
C’est parti, mes amis!
Windy, nervous, high speed, fresh legs, stress, tension, argy-bargy. All descriptors for the opening stages of the Tour de France. The first salvo of the grand tour had all of those juicy hallmarks — and beaucoup de plus!
The breakaways were given nothing. A minute, no more, tight leashes, zero chance of a long-shot, dark horse victory that changes your world and triples your salary. It was a vise grip enforced by UAE Emirates and Visma Lease-A-Bike.
Just try to stay upright and survive and check the stage off the race bible. Most of the race felt like the last 10k with sprinter teams ramping things up to warp speed. But in point of fact, the peloton was still over 100K from the finish line. In other words, full gas from the get-go.
The small fish in the doomed break soldiered on — how do you like that fish/soldier analogy? There was at least the benefit of screen time for small budget French squads. Bonjour, tout le monde!
It was cameo time for small budget squads like Arkea, Cofidis and Total Energies. Hardly a need to mention the names of the five dreamers except to say, chapeau, your job was make the break and you did. That, in itself, was a worthy accomplishment.
The fear of the crosswinds was oppressive, flags whipping, throwing the bikes sideways. Every DS on the radio warning, encouraging, cajoling his riders to stay alert and smart. All previews of the stage came true — harder than on paper, more demanding that it appeared.
Italian Filippo Ganna went down, remounted, rode alongside his team car and took off his right shoe for repairs. Not everyday you see a guy pedaling with one bare foot. The former world TT champion then motored back into the peloton despite a three minute deficit. Then he was dropped, faded and later abandoned with injuries. It was a grand depart with a sad, not-so-grand exit. An early victim and a huge blow to his Ineos team.
GC hopefuls Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) went out the back and worked like dogs to rejoin the peloton. Poor Julian, how I long for his days of magic and panache. There are no easy days in the Tour, just constant variations on pain, suffering and stress.
Welcome back, breakaway! At just over 100K, the catch is made. You may retake your places in the scrum. Time to crank it up for the first sprint points in the green jersey competition. Those watching live are already scared of the consequences once the battle for position begins.
Jonathan Milan nabs the first spot, then Bryan Cocquard and Philipsen. Everyone exhales because a catastrophic crash did not occur. Two new escapees launch off the front because, why not? A clever move that may net one of them the first polka dot jersey. That would be a sweet way to end Day One.
The wind gusts up to 13 mph on the open roads. The breakaway duo of Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) and Mattéo Vercher (Total Energies) tackle the Mont Cassel, a Cat 4 climb on stone brick roads — with polka dots as a reward. In a fight for a single point, in a frantic sprint to the line, Thomas slides his rear wheel on the stone, crashing and taking out Vercher. C’est le Tour, insanity happens.
The race settles down, if you could ever really say that about the biggest, grandest, most pressure-filled tour in bike racing. The peloton all together, hiding from the wind, no further mishaps and crashes. A pause before the inevitable storm.
That lull broke around 20 kilometers to go. The crosswinds and aggressive riding from Visma and UAE Team Emirates split the race into pieces. In front, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, behind in group two, a desperate Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
Wrong end of the split, out of position, attention lacking. Remco and Primož would finish almost 40 seconds behind their top rivals and will try to put a positive spin on the self-inflicted misfortune. Something along the lines of “It’s a long race,” “Plenty of time to make up time.” Good luck with that.
It’s 4K with about 25 riders still left up front when Mathieu van der Poel enforces his will. Everyone else must attempt to follow and many riders are not up to the task. The only high speed train running thru the center of Lille is the MvdP locomotive — with two more Alpecin–Deceuninck riders and their ace sprinter Jasper Philipsen cued up behind.
Philipsen launches and Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) attempts to come up along the right side barrier. That door closes slightly, knocking his speed back a notch. That’s a notch too much. The Belgian takes the victory, with Girmay second and Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) in third. The victory looked easy but after a long, hectic and stressful day in the Tour de France, it was anything but.
We are off to a cracking start. What an amazing sport!