Romain Bardet and Frank van den Broek pull off amazing stunt in Tour de France opening stage

After eleven months of waiting, the moment had finally arrived: the start of the Tour de France. Grand Départ, or rather Grande Partenza: for the first time in history, the Tour began in Italy, specifically in Florence. On Thursday, teams were welcomed during the presentation, and just after noon, the race kicked off in the home city of Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci.

In flat stages, it's common for a group of potential breakaways to get some space right away, but this time things were different. Attacks followed one another rapidly from the start, with prominent names not shying away from the work. Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Magnus Cort (Uno-X) threw their weight into the fray, but given the weather conditions, the stage was immediately quite challenging.

The peloton was relieved when a solid group managed to break away after fifteen kilometers of neutralization and fifteen kilometers of racing. Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ), Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Victorious), Clément Champoussin (Arkéa-B&B Hôtels), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Sandy Dujardin, Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies) and Van den Broek (dsm-firmenich PostNL) were the lucky ones, but Uno-X was not pleased with this.

The Norwegian team attempted to rectify the situation by closing the one-minute gap, which the very strong Jonas Abrahamsen managed to do, with Ryan Gibbons (Lidl-Trek) in tow. The two closed the gap uphill, causing the peloton to momentarily ease off the gas. However, this was not the case for everyone.

Mark Cavendish (Astana) visibly struggled with the not-so-high pace of the main group, setting off alarm bells in Kazakhstan. Michael Morkov, Cees Bol, Davide Ballerini and Michele Gazzoli were instructed to wait for the Brit, who also vomited while on his bike. Gazzoli later became the first to abandon the race, also due to struggling with the hot weather.

Other fast men faced similar issues, notably Fabio Jakobsen (dsm-firmenich PostNL) who assisted Cavendish. The peloton allowed the lead group's advantage to grow to six minutes, prompting EF Education-EasyPost to pick up the pace for Alberto Bettiol.

The pink team reduced the gap to three minutes, but the breakaway also pushed harder. Meanwhile, the peloton was shaken by a crash involving Wilco Kelderman, who slipped while descending and had to continue with a bruised left side. He was, however, able to rejoin the peloton heading towards the tough Barbotto climb.

On the five-kilometer ascent, UAE-Team Emirates moved up in the pack, dropping a bomb in the peloton. The first victims were David Gaudu and Lenny Martinez, the French hopefuls of Groupama-FDJ, along with potential outsiders like Magnus Cort (Uno-X), Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny), Stephen Williams (Israel-Premier Tech) and unfortunately also World Champion Mathieu van der Poel. Jonas Vingegaard remained unfazed, raising questions about how long the UAE team could maintain a high pace with around fifty riders left in the peloton.

At the top of the climb, the remaining leaders Abrahamsen, Van den Broek, Gibbons, Madouas and Mohoric held a two-minute advantage. However, the steep San Leo climb loomed next. UAE dropped the tempo here, so Visma | Lease a Bike took control of the pace.

Bardet then attacked from the peloton on behalf of dsm-firmenich PostNL, leaping towards Van den Broek in front. Van den Broek guided the Frenchman forward, leaving only Abrahamsen and Madouas to contend with the Dutch team duo that was now in the lead with an hour left to race.

As they approached the final climb to San Marino, the duo maintained a two-minute lead. This spurred Visma | Lease a Bike to ramp up the tempo, including the previously fallen Kelderman.

At the top of the last climb, they had a minute and a half lead, but a few teams were still lurking behind. Lidl-Trek had some riders around Mads Pedersen, and alongside Visma, EF Education-EasyPost and INEOS Grenadiers joined in the chase for the first yellow jersey. Pedersen’s men, along with Matteo Jorgenson, pushed hard, reducing the lead: with five kilometers left, the gap was half a minute, setting up a thrilling finale.

Van den Broek continued to push with an exhausted Bardet on his wheel, but the chasers did the same. At the one-kilometer mark, the gap was still ten seconds, which turned out to just be enough for the Dutch duo. Van den Broek piloted his leader to the yellow jersey — what a stunt!

Wout van Aert finished third, ahead of Tadej Pogacar and Maxim Van Gils.