Tour de France | SHOCK victory for Romain Bardet on stage 1 after daring attack; DSM one-two as Wout van Aert sprints for third
CyclingSaturday, 29 June 2024 at 17:57
Team DSM-Firmenich have planned the perfect Tour de France day. Stage 1 of the Tour de France was won by Romain Bardet who, alongside Frank van den Broek, did the ride of a lifetime to win on a brutal day in Rimini and take on the first yellow jersey of the race.
The first day of the Tour, with jerseys at hand and a possible stage win at hands in such a difficult stage with so much heat, naturally saw a lot of quality riders trying to make it to the front. Nine riders formed the day's break: Mattéo Vercher (who was dropped on the first climb of the day), Matej Mohoric, Valentin Madouas, Ion Izagirre, Clément Champoussin, Frank van den Broek, Sandy Dujardin, Jonas Abrahamsen and Ryan Gibbons.
A strong group that went up the road that meant the peloton also needed a moderate pace right from the start. Mark Cavendish was dropped right in the first climb of the day and had a nightmarish day; whilst teammate Michele Gazzoli was the first to abandon the race.
On the second climb of the day is where action truly started. UAE Team Emirates took control of the peloton and set a strong pace throughout two ascents then, which saw GC contenders such as David Gaudu and Lenny Martínez drop out of contention; whilst stage contenders such as Michael Matthews, Mathieu van der Poel, Bryan Coquard and Magnus Cort Nielsen were all dropped. Mads Pedersen also was, but returned to the peloton in the descent.
In the climb with 50 kilometers to go the breakaway began to split and in the peloton Romain Bardet lauched an attack as UAE stopped pacing due to Juan Ayuso's difficulties, and Team Visma | Lease a Bike picked up the pace. Jonas Abrahamsen (the first KOM leader of the race) and Valentin Madouas were joined by Bardet who was brought by van den Broek who dropped from the front group earlier on. In the penultimate climb of the day the two DSM riders set off by themselves off the front of the race. In the peloton Ben Healy launched an attack but couldn't bridge across; as Visma continued to lead the peloton with Wout van Aert present.
At the summit of the final climb of the day, with 26 kilometers to go, the duo still had almost two minutes over the reduced peloton. But now Lidl-Trek of Pedersen, EF Education of Marijn van den Berg and Visma of van Aert began to work together with a lot of firepower to bring the group back.
But in the end it was not enough. After a few kilometers of coming down fast, the DSM duo had the legs in the final kilometers to just barely hold off the peloton. Bardet, in his final Tour de France, has won the opening stage and takes on the yellow jersey. Frank van den Broek finished second alongside him; whilst Wout van Aert won the sprint for third a few seconds behind.
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8 Comments
I'm happy to see a Frenchman kicking up some dust. Bardet is old, but I always thought I would see some french guy win the Tour before I'm too old to watch it.
What in this dripping planet happened with David Gaudu and Lenny Martinez? Were they not meant for GC by Groupama FDJ? Or sick too?
Feel good story of the day! So happy for Bardet because he's had the pressure of being a French hopeful for so many years.
What an exciting start to this years Tour! There was big drama with Mark Cavendish struggling to just hold on, and a beautiful victory for a veteran rider competing in his last Tour. Chapeau to Romain Bardet on a very nice win, and big respect to Frank van den Broek for being an invaluable teammate.
Very happy it’s started and Bardet managed to cling on thanks to VDB, great move by them.
Nice also to see Wout is in shape.
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