July 5/14 15:19 pm - Tour de France: Stage 1 report and results

Posted by Editoress on 07/5/14
 

As he did in 2013, Marcel Kittel won stage 1 of the Tour de France as he avoided the chaos. The dream in yellow of hot favorite Mark Cavendish ended with a nasty crash 300 metres before the finish in Harrogate. The Brit took Simon Gerrans down, making the ambitions of the Australian to ride in yellow again after stage 2 a much more complicated task. On the other hand, Peter Sagan’s quest of the green jersey started on a high note with a second place.

Royal Grand Départ for Jarrier, Edet and Voigt
Tour de France rookie Benoît Jarrier (Bretagne-Séché Environnement) was the first attacker of the 101st edition as he went away from the gun after the ribbon cutting ceremony honored by the Duchess of Cambridge along with her husband Prince William at the Harewood House. Inspired by this royal Grand Départ, the oldest rider of the race Jens Voigt (Trek Factory Racing) made his move and was accompanied by Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) to make it a leading trio that wasn’t chased down by the peloton. All three riders had the same ambition of hunting for King of the Mountains points and take the first polka dot jersey. Jarrier was the fastest atop the first climb and grabbed one point there but also let Voigt know that he and Edet were unbeatable in terms of speed.

Voigt takes two Frenchmen by surprise
Jarrier and Edet weren’t interested by the intermediate sprint as they didn’t feel concerned by the green jersey, so they let Voigt go for it but the German’s acceleration was made for dropping them off for good. Voigt continued his solo effort after km 77 and took two points at the top of Buttertubs Hill in front of an enormous crowd. He doubled up atop Grinton Moor Hill and allowed himself to being reined in with 59km to go while some big names struggled in the first two climbs of the Tour de France: Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), Chris Horner (Lampre-Merida), Christophe Riblon (AG2R-La Mondiale), Dani Navarro (Cofidis), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr)…

Cavendish crashes, Kittel surges
After regrouping, the peloton rode on a slow motion despite a three-quarter tail wind, as if all contenders were satisfied with a bunch sprint finish. Lotto-Belisol led the pack for most of the race until Omega Pharma-Quick Step took the command with 4km to go. Fabian Cancellara (Trek) tried his luck under the flamme rouge but was reined in the last three hundred meters while Mark Cavendish caused a crash and took Simon Gerrans down with him. Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) took profit of the slightly hilly finish to outsprint Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and take the first yellow jersey again one year after he first did in Corsica at the end of stage 1.


Omega Pharma - Quick-Step Cycling Team press release regarding Mark Cavandish

Omega Pharma - Quick-Step Cycling Team confirms that Mark Cavendish underwent further examination on his right shoulder after today's crash.

The imaging underlined ligament ruptures with an AC-joint dislocation, which causes him a lot of pain. A final decision on his participation in tomorrow's stage will be taken tomorrow morning.

"I'm gutted about the crash today,” Cavendish said. "It was my fault. I'll personally apologize to Simon Gerrans as soon as I get the chance. In reality, I tried to find a gap that wasn't really there. I wanted to win today, I felt really strong and was in a great position to contest the sprint thanks to the unbelievable efforts of my team. Sorry to all the fans that came out to support - it was truly incredible.”




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