Julian Alaphilippe of Deceuninck-QuickStep took the opening stage and the leader’s yellow jersey of the Tour de France in front of his home fans after attacking on the final climb of the Cote de la Fosse aux Loups on Saturday.
The world champion attacked more than two kilometres from the finish and then held off the chasing pack that included Jumbo-Visma’s Primoz Roglic and the UAE Team Emirates' defending champion Tadej Pogacar.
The opening day was marred by two major crashes and time losses for several overall contenders.
The stage looked relatively calm before it was turned on its head when a spectator stepped onto the road holding a sign 45km from the finish.
Jumbo-Visma’s Tony Martin had nowhere to go and fell, creating a mass crash that saw Roglic, Wout Van Aert and almost all of Jumbo-Visma hit the deck.
Miguel Angel Lopez, Chris Froome, Sonny Colbrelli and dozens of others were held up, with the bunch briefly eased up the race as riders were allowed to return with 30km to go.
The second crash occurred in the final 10km. This time it was caused by a touch of wheels inside the bunch, with riders sent spinning to the side of the road.
When the riders began to pick themselves up, the casualties were numerous with Froome one of the slowest to remount.
It looked as though the four-time Tour winner’s race was over as he sat on the tarmac and even when he got to his feet gingerly, it seemed just a matter of time before he would exit the race via an ambulance.
However he made it to the finish, well down, but still in the race.
Towards the finish, Alaphilippe was perfectly set up on the climb by his teammates with the Belgian team leading the Frenchman to the lower slopes of the short but final ascent.
His anticipated attack quickly gained the world champion all the time he needed with Wout Van Aert – second wheel at the time – simply unable to respond.
When Roglic and Pogcar’s brief counter was reeled in, Alaphilippe maintained his advantage all the way to the line.
“It’s really incredible, honestly,” Alaphilippe said. “It’s a scenario I imagined and the start of my Tour is a success.
“It’s a super feeling, my team did great work, they took care of me and controlled things.
“In the final, I was caught up in a crash but I was able to stay calm and then I had to finish off the work on the final climb, where we really wanted to make it hard and get rid of the sprinters. When Dries opened the gap I gave the maximum without asking any questions.
Alaphilippe leads the Tour de France from Australian Michael Matthews of Team BikeExchange by 12 seconds. Roglic is a further two seconds down followed by Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Wilco Kelderman (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Pogacar finishing in that order.
“It wasn’t planned to go from that far but when I went I saw I had a small gap and I saw everyone was à bloc so I decided to keep going,” Alaphilippe added.
“In the final kilometre, I saw the gap wasn’t coming down. Every time it’s an emotion I can’t describe. It’s a joy for me to win but also to give emotions to those close to me. This is really a special win for me.”
