That all seemed to be going so smoothly and calmly, and then the last few kilometres were absolute carnage. The Tour is the Tour, as they say when things like this happen. What looked like a week of phoney war for the sprinters is a tale of some big favourites trying to chisel their way back. Adam Yates was also among the group 51 seconds back.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow for the second stage.
Chris Froome has spoken to Team Sky’s press team.
I saw a lot of crashes out there today. It’s just one of those things. We always knew the first few days were going to be tricky and going to be sketchy. It’s part of the game unfortunately. We were right at the front part of the peloton in the top third. There wasn’t too much more the guys could have done. It was getting quite chaotic with some of the sprinters there, but that’s bike racing. I’m just grateful I’m not injured in any way and there’s a lot of road to cover before Paris obviously.
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Here’s our first take on today’s stage.
Here’s a snapshot of that moment.
Chris Froome barged off road during Stage 1 of #TDF2018 😲
— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) July 7, 2018
WATCH: https://t.co/zVdKkkr5O8 pic.twitter.com/oSdbSE3q6M
The other Sky rider to fall was Team Sky’s Egan Bernal, the youngest rider in the race at 21, who slid off the side of the road in another incident. Froome was sent hurtling into a field as the road turned to the left. He ended up in one of the ditches you will find alongside any French road, the soft verges or ‘accotement non stabilisé’.
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Froome’s Team Sky jersey was badly torn as he made it to the finish line. It’s now confirmed that he lost 51 seconds on the leaders.
Lawson Craddock made it to the finish line after his crash, an act of courage and bravery. He was riding lopsided, as if his shoulder was creating an imbalance. It remains to be seen if he can make the start tomorrow.
Here’s that sprint in all its glory. Trademark stuff, really. The main action was taking place behind.
⏪🔻 Relive this last kilometer and the stage win for Fernando Gaviria! 🙌🇨🇴
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 7, 2018
⏪🔻 Revivez ce dernier kilomètre avec la victoire de Fernando Gaviria ! 🙌🇨🇴#TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/0hCvYCJoub
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Gaviria won the green jersey as well as yellow. He speaks.
It really is an amazing day for the team. We were ready for it. It’s a jersey everyone wants to win and to wear it on the first day is amazing. I don’t know how long we will keep it but we will try to. It was a really tough arrival. Our team was in front, we were pretty calm. We had a clear plan for today’s stage.
Froome went off the barriers and over his handlebars. Shades of 2014, when he didn’t even reach the cobbles of Roubaix. They await a week on Monday.
Richie Porte was in that group with Froome, which means another GC contender is 50 seconds back after the first day. That’s as bad a start as Froome suffered at the Giro.
The suggestion is that Froome lost as much as 50 seconds after his prang, and Quintana lost a minute.
Here’s the result and as it’s the first day, the general classification.
📊 Stage 1 Top 10
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 7, 2018
📊 Top 10 de l'étape 10#TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/NtKNrc1sfC
Gaviria became the first man to win a stage on his Tour debut since Fabian Cancellera in 2004.
Here’s a shot from the finish.
And the first stage is for @FndoGaviria ! 💪🇨🇴
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 7, 2018
Et la première étape est pour @FndoGaviria ! 💪🇨🇴#TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/NW2zBsWJmU
Quickstep rode a perfect lead out for their Colombian sprinter, but things did not go according to plan for the big boys, Team Sky and Movistar. We await news of the time losses Froome and Quintana suffered.
Gaviria will wear yellow tomorrow, while Froome and Quintana lost vital seconds. Cavendish never got into the sprint while Sagan and Kittel got closest in the sprint.
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Fernando Gaviria wins the stage.
On his Tour debut, too.
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Cavendish in a good position. So are most of the favourites.
The sprint is being set up now by the Quickstep and Bora teams. There’s 1km to go and they are heading downhill.
So, two big favourites will lose precious seconds. It’s as large as 37 seconds at the moment for Froome.
Drama here! Froome has taken a fall!
He’s gone off at the side. He’s way back in the field, and Luke Rowe is trying him to lead him back up into the pack. The defending champion is 4oom back. And Nairo Quintana has got a puncture! Drama!
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All the major players, save for Demare, are in the pack, and it’s building up to the sprint with 6km to go. The pace is breakneck.
Demare’s chance in the sprint looks to have gone, and one of Team Sky took a fall. It wasn’t Froome who is comfortably within the group.
Oops, there’s been a crash. Richie Porte, the luckless one, seemed to be in the midst of it. Nobody flat out on the gravel, though. Arnaud Demare took a fall, and he’s one of the fancied Frenchman in the race. He gets pushed back on to his bike and sets off, but gingerly.
We have under 15km to go. And the duo, coming up for 185km free of the pack, are 15 seconds clear and go for the intermediate sprint. Cousin takes the three points, Offredo takes two and Naesen one. The big sprinters sit up in their saddles as there are no points to fight for.
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Word reaches us that the Team Sky lads had a World Cup sweepstake. Froome pulled out Russia.
Oliver Naesen, the Belgian, has attacked off the front of the peloton, which throws something into the mix. Perhaps he is chasing a sprint point in the imminent intermediate.
A word ahead of the sprint: it features two roundabouts and a 90 degree turn. Could be carnage. In fact, it will be carnage.
Job done for the day, Ledanois has dropped behind his two colleagues and the breakaway is slowly expiring. With 22km to go, the gap is 25 seconds and the major teams are making their move within the peloton.
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There is another sporting event on today. Or one in particular other than the Eclipse at Sandown and Wimbledon. Barry Glendenning is building up to the soccer here.
The sprint at the top of the climb begins and ends very quickly for the leaders. Ledanois surges to the front and takes the solitary mountains classification point and will be wearing the polka dot jersey tomorrow. The gap is 1’ 5”.
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That category four climb is preceded by a smaller climb and at the front, there is a schism between the leading trio before they come back together and have a pow-wow over strategy of how to stay away for longer. There is, after all, a yellow jersey for grabs here. Otherwise, it’s going to the sprinters.
Now approaching that climb at the Côte de Vix, where despite some blustery weather we are not expecting crosswinds and echelons. The gap between the leaders and the peloton is at 1’ 12” with just under a kilometre distance between them.
A reminder for Philippa York’s team-by-team guide to Le Tour. No drop-outs just yet, as Lawson Craddock keeps going despite that shoulder problem.
The leaders are just over a minute clear of the pack now with 38km to go. John Westwell emails back in: “Thanks for the correction, John. You mentioned Cavendish looking ‘antsy’. He’s certainly tightly wound up in anticipation of today’s finish. Every time I’ve seen him in the group, his jaw has been jutting out and twitching. He will either win or ‘die’ trying (although I hope not literally).”
Look back through the decades, and the year ending in eight, to channel Chas & Dave, often results in a classic, if controversial Tour. Ten years ago it was Carlos Sastre of Spain, perhaps the most anonymous of all recent winners (his wiki page is a desert). Twenty years ago, it was Marco Pantani winning the Festina Affair Tour and thirty years ago, Pedro Delgado, who won despite testing positive for a substance used to mask anabolic steroids. Forty years ago was Bernard Hinault’s first victory of five.
“The Badger” has been in the news of late, of course.
Every year, I watch Le Tour and see these sweeping shots of France and think I just have to go there this year. Thankfully, I am doing next month but this is beautiful.
📍 La Baie de l'Aiguillon 😍@DepVendee#TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/Lqx8cEavxq
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 7, 2018
That breakaway of Kevin Ledanois, Jerome Cousin and Yoann Offredo is down to 1’ 30” now, with the suggestion being they are attempting to save energy for the climb. Just a reminder. The peloton is not wasting much energy, either.
A quick shot of Cavendish in the field looking a little antsy amid his Dimension Data teammates. He fancies this stage win, and the chance to claim his second yellow jersey. He took it in 2016, on the way to winning four stages.
Les troi amis have stayed away from the field, and at 60km to go are closing on 150km of being away from the field. They are currently 2’ 11” ahead. The category four stage at 28km may be when the peloton reins them in.
Corrections department. John Westwell emails in to say:
“Hi John. Although Chris Froome didn’t finish that 2014 stage, he didn’t crash on the cobbles. He’d crashed the day before and had fractured bones in both wrists/hands. He wasn’t able to control his bike the following day, and crashed on a pretty innocuous piece of tarmac road in the wet conditions. He did OK on the cobbled stage on the Tour in the following year.”
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There are 75km to go, and the gap to the breakaway is now under two minutes.
That intermediate sprint was won by Jerome Cousin, but the group sprint was won by Quickstep sprinter Fernando Gaviria, making ahead of his Tour debut. Griepel followed him in, while Sagan lost his lead-out man. Cavendish was there or thereabouts but didn’t fully contest it.
Meanwhile, Craddock’s problem appears to be his shoulder. He is soldiering on, having taken a painkiller, but his prospects of seeing out the day, let alone the three weeks of the Tour, appear to be low.
Lawson Craddock of Education First has been in the wars, having had a couple of falls and one in the feed zone. He has blood coming down his face, and they are testing out his collar bone. Not looking good for him.
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The first intermediate sprint of the Tour will soon be upon us, and with three riders in the breakaway, there are points available. Sagan and Kittel to put down a marker?
In these early stages, and in a first week like this, largely flat until next Monday flies the Tour down to the Alps, the main aim is to avoid injury. Froome hurt himself before the opening stage of the Giro and took until the final Saturday to recover his form. He also did himself an injury on the cobbles in 2014, and is perhaps fearful of Stage 9, from Arras to Roubaix. Today, they will be going one heck of a tilt when it comes to the finish, which could mean some thrills and spills.
Here’s some footage of that instant breakaway.
🚩 KM 0 🚩@CousinJerom @OffredoYoann @KevinLedanois 🚴♂️🚴♂️🚴♂️💨#TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/E25aMV3FRC
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 7, 2018
The three French escapees opened up their gap by a minute only to drop back to 2’ 20”, which probably owes something to a glitch in the computer. Their break has been good news for their sponsors but there little hope of a stage win for les trois amis. The peloton is idling a tad, but there is little threat to the plan of a sprint stage.
The Festina affair centred on Willy de Voet, the Belgian soigneur who was caught at the French border with his car boot full of contraband. His book, “Breaking The Chain” is recommended reading for anyone. Thankfully, we have extracts here and here.
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And from earlier this week, Jeremy Whittle on this being the 20th anniversary of the Festina Affair, probably the biggest scandal in the race’s history. Well, apart from that Armstrong character.
And Will Fotheringham’s interview with Mark Cavendish.
Here’s Jeremy Whittle on Froome.
Today’s 202km stage has already gone 75km, and there’s a been a breakaway, with Kevin Ledanois (Fortuneo-Samsic), Jerome Cousin (Direct Energie) and Yoann Offredo (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) currently 2’ 32” clear of the peloton, but the gap was far greater than that. The trio went right from the flag of the Grand Départ.
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Preamble
Bonjour. This year, there will be no prologue time trial and that removes the need to do a series of gags in the style of Frankie Howerd’s Lurcio. Instead, a flat stage that will probably be a day for the sprinters, give or take the unlikely event of a successful breakaway. In British terms, this Tour can be viewed through the prism of Eddy Merckx. Chris Froome is aiming to be the first rider to win four straight Grand Tours, a sequence he began when winning last year’s Tour. Froome would also join the five-time winners’ club of Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain. Someone else once won it seven times, but we won’t mention him just yet.
Meanwhile, Mark Cavendish, whose form as a sprinter is something of an unknown quantity this year, wants to emulate “the Cannibal” and his 34 stage wins; the Manx man has 30 at present, having won his first in 2008. Last year, when he crashed out with a broken shoulder that still ails him, he drew a blank. His main rivals are expected to be Marcel Kittel, Peter Sagan and André Greipel, just as they have been for time in memoriam. Sagan’s Tour was cut short last year when he was expelled for his part in the crash that did for “Cav”. No Sam Bennett, Sagan’s Bora-hansgrohe teammate, who won three stages at the Giro, as the team will be trying to win back the green jersey for the speeding Slovak.
And what of Froome? He will be keeping a low profile today, though it will be instructive to see what kind of reception he gets from the crowd in the Vendée. He may well have had no case to answer on his elevated salbutamol reading, but that has not silenced his critics. Not a bit of it, in fact. It would be a surprise to see him, or any of the other favourites to the fore: Adam Yates, Nairo Quintana, Vincenzo Nibali, Romain Bardet et al.
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