Stage one round-up of Tour de France
Alessandro Petacchi won the first stage of the Tour de France in Brussels after an amazing day of drama.
Italian Petacchi now holds the green jersey, while Saturday’s prologue winner and overall Tour leader Fabian Cancellara will hold the yellow jersey after opening up a 10-second gap to second place man Tony Martin.
Sunday’s race was filled with crashes, with the main drama coming at the end of the stage. On the last bend as the sprinters were getting ready to make their moves, Mark Cavendish, Oscar Freire and Jeremy Hunt fell off, while on the final straight there was another pile up involving Cancellara which allowed Petacchi to sprint to the finish line.
Cavendish is a rider who has been getting to grips with falling off his bike. In the Tour of 2007, he crashed just before the start of the sprint, while this year at the Tour de Switzerland he pulled out after a heavy crash, which ended up with a fellow rider fracturing his elbow. “It's bike racing. I don't know what happened there. I'm okay,” said Cavendish.
A dog running out onto the road at the 50-kilometre mark spiced up the action during the day, disrupting the flow of Britain’s David Millar, Tour contender Ivan Basso and Nicolas Roche. Adam Hansen suffered badly, and as a result of a fall he will not be taking part in the second stage because of a broken collarbone and shoulder. “I'm extremely disappointed. I was really looking forward to this tour and I'm upset now that they have to continue with only eight riders.
“It was one of those freak crashes. I briefly saw something on the road before I hit it and my bike skid across the field. Most riders managed to avoid me but at the last second I hit the back wheel of another rider and went down,” said Hansen.
Out of the main contenders to win the Tour, seven-time champion Lance Armstrong leads the pack, putting in a strong display to climb to fourth, with last year’s winner Alberto Contador in sixth and Cadel Evans in 23rd.
"I can't complain. I felt pretty good today. From this morning, the whole day ... it was a hard time trial, deceivingly hard. In my heart that was a surprise. I was not the best out there today but ... I have to say it was the best one I've done since the comeback. It could have been a little better ... but if you had told told me this morning, 'Hey, sign up for fourth and put time on your rivals', I would have signed with both hands,” said Armstrong.
Contador was less than happy after his performance. “I could not find my usual rhythm. My sensations are not great because I have not been riding competitively for many days. My goal was not to win the stage. I didn't take any risks,” said the Spaniard, who has been battling with flu over the last few weeks.
The Tour resumes today with the second stage beginning at Brussels and ending at Spa, a total distance of 201 kilometres.
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