Crosswinds, crashes and chaos characterised a frenzied opening stage of the Tour de France, won by Jasper Philipsen in Lille Métropole, where the 27-year-old also took the first yellow jersey of his career.
The Belgian sprinter, winner of three stages in the 2024 Tour, was given an armchair ride by his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammates into the long finishing straight of the Boulevard Vauban, where he expertly dispatched rivals, Biniam Girmay, of Intermarché Wanty, and Søren Wærenskjold, racing for Uno-X Mobility.
Philipsen has now won 10 Tour stages in four years and with other sprint opportunities expected in coming days, looks in the mood to add to his tally.
“Ten wins is something I will never forget,” he said, “and the team performance was incredible. We were in the front all day, we were there in the split, and in the end, we could use our strength to finish it off.”
In a chaotic opening stage, raced at breakneck speeds through gusting crosswinds, there were soon crashes, punctures and dropped riders, with many left chasing back frantically through the race convoy.
Eighteen kilometres from Lille, the crosswinds finally forced a decisive coup, and a select bunch moved ahead. In the front group were the race favourites Tadej Pogacar, the defending champion of UAE Team Emirates XRG, and Jonas Vingegaard of Visma-Lease a Bike, the 2022 and 2023 winner.
“It was a stressful day, but a good day for us,” Vingegaard said. “It was our plan to try and go in the wind with 20 kms to go. The team kept me out of trouble and they made the split as well.”
The Dane argued that an attack in the crosswinds was inevitable. “It’s either us, or somebody else trying. We knew it was windy enough. Either you go, or somebody else goes. But then, at least you know you’re on the front.”
Pogacar was equally pleased with the outcome. “From kilometre zero, we were at the front,” Pogacar said. “It was hectic, just as we thought.”
Behind the two favourites, the fallout was brutal, with frantic scrambling required by those who had lost contact with the wheel ahead of them. Among those cut adrift were the Olympic road race champion, Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quick-Step, who was third overall last year, the five-time Grand Tour winner Primoz Roglic, of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, and Vingegaard’s teammate Simon Yates, the Giro d’Italia winner.
Evenepoel and Roglic are now already on the back foot, as is Geraint Thomas, with all three having lost 39 seconds to Pogacar and Vingegaard. Yates, meanwhile, is a distant 164th overall, already more than six minutes behind the main favourites.
“Thirty-nine seconds is a pain,” Evenepoel said. “It’s always annoying to start a Tour behind.”
It was also a painful start to the Tour for Ineos Grenadiers, after Filippo Ganna, expected to be a key contender in stage five’s individual time trial around Caen, suffered the ignominy of being the first rider to abandon after an earlier crash, just 52km into the race.
Worse befell the French hope Lenny Martinez, of Bahrain Victorious, mentored by the former Team Sky and British Cycling coach Rod Ellingworth. The 21-year-old finished dead last, a few metres ahead of the broom wagon, after losing more than nine minutes.
The stage looped south-west and then headed north, through the Pas-de-Calais, before skirting the Belgian border and turning back towards Lille as the peloton sped towards the finish. The early breakaway, of five riders, survived for 70km before the peloton reeled them in near the first intermediate sprint, at La Motte-au-Bois, won by Jonathan Milan of Lidl-Trek.
The subsequent post-sprint lull was filled by the French duo Benjamin Thomas, a gold medallist on the track in last year’s Paris Olympics now riding for Cofidis, and TotalEnergies’ Mattéo Vercher.
A breathless peloton was briefly content to give them their head on the approach to the climb of the Mont Cassel, as they built a lead nudging a minute. But in a moment that seemed to epitomise the home nation’s malaise, the pair self-sabotaged when sprinting for the climbing points at the fourth-category climb, Thomas’s rear wheel sliding across the dusty cobbles and taking a furious Vercher down, as they crested the top of the hill.
Meanwhile, Dave Brailsford made a reclusive return to the Tour’s start village. “We all love having him back and feel honoured that he’s here,” Ineos Grenadiers’ sports director, Zak Dempster, said. For now, however, Brailsford isn’t yet honouring the media with any public appearances.
Stage two, heading north from Lauwin-Planque towards the Channel at Boulogne-sur-Mer, will surely offer more of the same, but with three short, sharp climbs in the closing 30km, the denouement may prove even more chaotic.
