Tour de France Week One Recap

Today is the first of two scheduled rest days in this year’s Tour de France. While the riders are recovering from yesterday’s battle on the cobbles, we thought we’d take a look back at what transpired over the first nine stages and peek ahead to the mountains that await.

The flat and furious first week across Northern France had plenty of finish line fireworks as the sprinters got to strut their stuff but overall, the early stages of the race weren’t exactly must-see TV until the 1K to go flag. Slovakia’s Peter Sagan and Colombian Fernando Gaviria Rendon have been trading blows since stage one when Rendon pipped Sagan at the finish line, a feat of strength that he would duplicate in stage four. While Sagan only has one stage victory so far, he has stood on the podium for six out of the first nine stages of the tour. This consistency has given him a four point lead over Rendon in the battle for the Green Jersey.

Stage three’s team time trial featured two surprising moments with BMC pulling off the narrow upset over Team Sky and general classification contender and super climber Nario Quintana finishing nearly 55 seconds off of BMC’s winning pace. As the race heads into its first mountain stage on Tuesday, Quintana will be over a minute behind GC rivals Chris Froome and Adam Yates.

By far the most exciting portion of the Tour’s opening act was Sunday’s stage 9 that finished in Roubaix and hit many sections of the cobbles made famous by Paris-Roubaix along the way. Even though the stage boasted bluebird conditions, the cobbles humbled many key riders in the peloton. Chris Froome hit the deck but recovered. His former teammate and current BMC star Richie Porte ended his Tour before the stage even hit the first section of cobbles when he emerged from a pile up with a broken collarbone.

At the finish outside the world famous Roubaix Velodrome, German John Degenkolb of Trek Segafredo won a dramatic, attack from the front breakaway sprint over BMC’s Greg Van Avermaet, who’s been wearing the Yellow Jersey since stage three, and Greg’s fellow Belgian countryman Yves Lampaert of team Quick-Step.

Sunday will likely be Van Aavermaet’s final day in yellow as the race heads into the mountains for three consecutive days culminating with a finish atop the legendary Alpe d’Huez on Thursday.

Grab your popcorn because this race is about to get exciting.

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