Julian Alaphilippe takes Yellow in crash-marred first stage of Tour de France
Jun 26 2021 11:19 pm CET
Photo of Julian Alaphilippe (c) Wout Beel
Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) has taken the victory of the first stage in the Tour de France after a day in which several crashed affected the pack.
The first stage of the French grand tour took the pack between Brest and Landerneau over a 197.8-kilometre rolling route with a climbing finish that in theory would suit the puncheurs. The day started with the escape of Danny van Poppel, Cristian Rodriguez, Anthony Perez, Ide Shcelling, Franck Bonnamour and Conor Swift.
During the ascent of the Cote de Stanf Ar Garront, Schelling attacked and continued by himself while in the pack Aurelien Paret-Peintre and Joris Nieuwenhuis crashed but returned to the bike soon after. With around 40 kilometres to go, Jumbo-Visma's Tony Martin hit a carton sign a woman was holding in the public and caused a mass crash that left behind riders like Bryan Coquard, Jack Haig, Wout van Aert, Sonny Colbrelli, Peter Sagan and Miguel Angel Lopez, and caused the withdrawal of Jasha Sütterlin.
Schelling was caught with 26 kilometres to go, and he will wear the Polka-Dot jersey on the second stage of the race. With seven kilometres to go and as the peloton was riding fast, there was another mass crash in the pack that left on the ground riders like Chris Froome, Andre Greipel and Ion Izagirre, among others.
Deceuninck-Quick-Step set a high pace during the first metres of the last climb of the day and with around 2 kilometres to go, World Champion Julian Alaphilippe attacked and was chased by riders like Primoz Roglic, Tadej Pogacar, Pierre Latour and Wout van Aert.
Alaphilippe crossed the finish line by himself and took the first Yellow Jersey of this edition of the race, after wearing it for 14 days in 2019. Michael Matthews, Roglic, Haig and Wilco Kelderman completed the top five of the day.
REPORT: Julian Alaphilippe takes Yellow in crash-marred first stage of Tour de France https://t.co/9gulRh8KIH#TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/lQEmYWZDrU
— CyclingPub (@CyclingPub) June 26, 2021
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