Romain Bardet ensures a French dream start to the 111th Tour de France on foreign soil. The 33-year-old wins the first stage starting in Florence and finishing in Rimini.
At the start of this year's Grand Boucle, the riders had to conquer 3600 meters in altitude, more than ever before in a first stage, on the 206 km route through Tuscany to the Adriatic coast in temperatures of up to 38 degrees. Quite a few of them reached their limits. The 39-year-old sprint star Mark Cavendish, for example, who could become the sole record winner ahead of Eddy Merckx with a 35th stage victory and had to vomit on the way, reached the finish almost 40 minutes behind. Stefan Bissegger and Silvan Dillier also lost around half an hour on the winning time - a good ten minutes more than Stefan Küng, the third Swiss rider in the starting field for this year's stage race.
Romain Bardet took advantage of the challenging stage to realize his long-cherished dream of the maillot jaune late in the race. The 33-year-old from Team DSM, together with his young Dutch team-mate Frank van den Broek, saved five seconds as a breakaway rider to secure a one-two victory. It was Bardet's fourth stage win at the Tour and the first time he was rewarded for his efforts with the leader's jersey. The Belgian Wout van Aert took 3rd place in the sprint of the peloton ahead of Tadej Pogacar.
No clash of the favorites yet
The favorites around Pogacar and defending champion Jonas Vingegaard did not yet engage in a major exchange of blows during the exhausting start in the Italian heat. According to Pogacar, this may happen on Sunday. "Today is not yet the day. But I think Sunday or the stage on Tuesday will be super tough for the favorites," said the Slovenian season dominator, who wants to be the first rider since Marco Pantani 26 years ago to win the double of the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, before the start of the stage.
On the second day of the Tour, the pros will start on Sunday in Cesenatico, the birthplace of Tour de France winner Marco Pantani, who died in 2004. The stage ends in Bologna after 199.2 km and several short but tough climbs. A breakaway rider with all-round qualities could win there. There may also be a first showdown between the favorites.
SDA
