Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) and Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) were expected to contest the high-speed, winner-takes-all-sprint on stage 1 of the Tour de France but were left disappointed and apologetic after they missed the decisive split and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took the win and the first yellow jersey.
Milan won a sprint at the finish ahead of Arnaud De Lie (Lotto) and Bryan Coquard (Cofidis), some 39 seconds after Philipsen, but it was for 39th place from the chasing peloton.
Merlier was a few places behind Milan, not really sprinting to the line, as was Wout Van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), who was unable to join the 40-rider split with GC teammate Jonas Vingegaard, Matteo Jorgenson and Tiesj Benoot.
Other sprinters also missed out and they could only ride around Philipsen as he celebrated with teammates Kaden Groves and Mathieu van der Poel for the scrum of television cameras and photographers. They no doubt faced a painful debrief on the team bus, just like the GC riders who also missed the key split, sparked by Visam-Lease a Bike with 17km to race.
Merlier disappeared onto the Soudal-QuickStep bus, naturally gutted to have missed out after all the talk, prediction and hope of him winning his first ever Tour de France sprint and taking the yellow jersey.
Jonathan Milan stopped to talk to family and warm-down on the rollers and was clearly emotional and disappointed.
'I'm really sorry," he repeated three times while briefly speaking in Italian at the Lidl-Trek team bus.
"I'm sorry we missed the split. We didn't expect it and thought it would close quickly but those up front rode like crazy because Remco Evenepoel was also caught behind.
"There was a lot of stress and we sensed all day, right from the start. When the split happened, we tried to close the gap and we felt good but we could do it. I'm really sorry."
Stage 2 is for the puncheur riders and GC contenders like Tadej Pogačar rather than pure sprinters like Milan, so he will likely have to wait for stage 3 to Dunkirk.
"We'll try again stage but this was a huge chance. I wanted it but we'll keep trying," he said.
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