Chasing Le Tour: a dramatic opening stage

June 29, 2013
2 minute read

The opening stage of the 100th Tour de France was supposed to be a formality. A break would get away to soak up some TV time, the sprinters teams would reel them in, then Cavendish would leave all in his wake to take yellow into stage 2. Things turned out to be far more dramatic than that.

A break did get away, gaining several minutes on the field and putting Juan Jose Lobato in the KOM jersey after summiting the day’s only climb ahead of his breakaway companions. And predictably, the breakaway’s time gap was eroded and eventually erased with 37km to go. And then things got interesting.

Newly-crowned Dutch road race champion Johnny Hoogerland crashed with around 15km to go, having lost an argument with an advertising banner. Up the road in Bastia the Orica-GreenEDGE team bus was trying to pass under the finish gantry and promptly got wedged, sending organisers, officials, photographers and other members of the media into a frenzy.

While all and sundry tried to unjam the bus, another crash in the main field brought down riders, including Garmin-Sharp’s GC contender Ryder Hesjedal. Race radio reported that with the Orica-GreenEDGE bus still stuck, the result would be taken from the 3km to go barrier, right where a roundabout was. Some of the riders got the message, some didn’t. And the problem was only exacerbated when the bus was reversed away from the gantry and the original finish line was reinstated.

So at 6k to go we get told 3k sign is the finish. We use 3 men. 3.5k to go we get told its original final. Ufff. #confusingandfrustrating

— Greg Henderson (@Greghenderson1) June 29, 2013

(See Hendo’s Twitter profile for more of his thoughts on the incident)

But many of the riders had more to worry about than the location of the finish line. A huge crash with 5km to go thwarted the chances of pre-race favourites Mark Cavendish, Peter Sagan and Andre Greipel, and saw Albert Contador land heavily on his arm and shoulder.

At 5km to go riders crashed in front, behind and beside me at the same time! Felt like in Matrix, avoiding bullets! #lucky #tdf #neo #theone

— Manuel Quinziato (@manuelquinziato) June 29, 2013

Reigning world TT champion Tony Martin was probably the most seriously hurt of the felled riders, with a slew of injuries including a concussion, contusions, a deep wound on his elbow, and lots of road rash. Fortunately he hasn’t been ruled out of stage 2 yet.

In the end the stage honours went to Argos-Shimano’s Marcel Kittel in a bunch sprint ahead of Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Danny van Poppel (Vacansoleil). Kittel was presented with three jerseys at the finish: the yellow overall leader’s jersey, the green points jersey and the white best young rider’s jersey. It’s great to see Argos-Shimano punching above their weight in the first season as a WorldTour team.

It certainly wasn’t the start to the 100th edition of the Tour de France we were expecting, but there’s no shortage of dramas to talk about. We’re excited to see what the next 20 days bring. In the meantime, check out these images from stage 1.

: Fans waving the flag of Corsica. It portrays a Moor’s Head in black wearing a white bandana above his eyes. Previously, the bandana covered his eyes. Paoli (Pasquale, former leader who wrote Corsica’s constitution) wanted the bandana moved to above the eyes to symbolise the liberation of the Corsican people.

: The first breakaway of the 2013 TdF consisted of Jerome Cousin (Europcar), Lars Boom (Belkin), Juan José Lobato (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Juan Antonio Flecha (Vacansoleil-DCM) and Cyril Lemoine (Sojasun) who held a maximum of only about three minutes on the bunch.

: The peloton winding its way along the coast from Porto-Vecchio to Bastia

: Cipo is in Le Hood!

: The media caravan coming through the finish. (Top left): the Ibis Hotels had one of the best ideas by using a front facing gopro camera, and a screen so the fans could see themselves and the road ahead.

: Pat McQuaid made an appearance to the finish and did a few interviews, however he did not want to talk about Brian Cookson.

: We were all standing around the finish line when we heard a massive scratch/boom! The Orica-GreenEDGE bus hit the finish line gantry while arriving late to the end of the course. The gantry is lowered after the advertising caravan comes through and I was surprised to see the OGE bus there at this late stage of the race. In a press release, Matt White explained: “The bus was led under the finish gantry, and it we took for granted that there was enough clearance. We’ve had this bus since we started the team, and it’s the same bus we took to the Tour last year. Our bus driver was told to move forward and became lodged under the finish gantry. He followed all instructions in the process that followed thanks to the hard work by ASO that allowed him to remove the bus before the finish. It was the best possible outcome given the situation.” According to reports, GreenEDGE was fined 2000CHF for the incident with the late bus. Jokes aside, it wasn’t GreenEDGE’s fault for the mishap. It was chaos getting accredited vehicles to finish area and lots of miscommunication from the road marshalls.

: A tractor came to the rescue and pushed the bus backwards from under the gantry. The riders were only about 3 kilometers away at this point and it was absolute chaos at the finish line.

: After the tractor reversed out from helping the GreenEDGE bus get unstuck, it was complete chaos. Many photographers were not able to get their footage of the finish.

: Riders being called into anti-doping control today: Marcel Kittel (winner, as always) as well as five randoms: Pavel Brutt (102) (Katusha), Daniel Navarro (139) (Cofidis), Hubert Dupont (85) (AG2R), Simon Geschke (196) (Shimano Argos), and Guillaume Levarlet (136) (Cofidis)