TRIUMPH: Argos-Shimano team rider Marcel Kittel of Germany celebrates as he wins the 213 km first stage of the centenary Tour de France cycling race from Porto-Vecchio to Bastia, on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. – Reuters photo
BASTIA, France: Germany’s Marcel Kittel of the Argos-Shimano team won the opening stage of the Tour de France on Saturday, a 213-kilometre ride from Porto-Vecchio to Bastia in Corsica that was lit up by a hectic finale.
Kittel stole in front of Norwegian rider Alexander Kristoff right on the line to win a Tour stage for the first time in his career, while Dutchman Danny van Poppel of the Vacansoleil team came third, although the whole 198-man field was later awarded the same time.
Kittel became the first rider to wear the yellow jersey in the 100th Tour, which continues on Sunday with a 156-kilometre second stage across Corsica from Bastia to Ajaccio.
The German, 25, also took the green jersey for the best sprinter and the white jersey for the best young rider.
“It feels like I have gold on my shoulders,” a delighted Kittel said in his post-race press conference.
“It is unbelievable. I have no real words to describe the feeling. I’m so, so proud that we made it today and that we could achieve a goal that we had been working towards for years.”
For long spells, the first stage ever held on the Mediterranean island was largely uneventful, save for a breakaway by a small group of riders including Spain’s Juan Antonio Flecha and Lars Boom of the Netherlands.
But, after the breakaway was reined in by the peloton, there was chaos in a closing 20 kilometres marked by a series of crashes on the narrow roads leading into Bastia and a bizarre incident involving one of the team buses at the finish line.
The bus of the Orica-GreenEdge team got stuck when it hit the gantry over the finish line as the riders approached, leading to suggestions that the line may be brought forward by three kilometres.
The bus was moved out of the way just in time to allow the first stage to conclude as planned, but not before a clutch of riders were hampered by a series of crashes.
Dutch champion Johnny Hoogerland, who famously crashed into a barbed wire fence on the 2011 Tour and was seriously hurt earlier this year after colliding with a car while out training, went to ground after crashing into an advertising banner, in a sign of things to come.
Spain’s Alberto Contador, considered by many to be the main challenger to race favourite Chris Froome of Britain, was the highest-profile name to fall on the way into Bastia, as he went to ground in a mass crash that also took out Slovakia’s promising sprinter Peter Sagan.
Contador appeared to suffer an injury to his left shoulder, and there will be great concern for his fitness among his Saxo-Tinkoff team.
Germany’s Tony Martin was even more seriously hurt, with the Omega Pharma-QuickStep teammate of Mark Cavendish being stretchered into his team bus before being taken to hospital with a reported fractured shoulder.
Cavendish, who had dreamt of winning the stage and pulling on the yellow jersey for the first time in his career, was a leading voice in laying the blame for the carnage on the race organisers.
“I didn’t crash, but the guy behind me crashed,” he said, before saying that the chaos
could have been avoided had word not got out that organisers intended to bring forward the finish line.
“What caused the problems was changing the finish. We heard on the radio with literally five kilometres to go that the sprint was in two kilometres, and then one kilometre later they were like ‘No, it’s at the original finish.’ It’s just carnage.”
Meanwhile, Froome came through the finish unscathed, but did suffer an inauspicious start to the day when he fell from his bike and appeared to take a knock to the knee as the peloton paraded through Porto-Vecchio at the start of the opening stage.
He was then forced to change bikes for the remainder of the day’s racing. — AFP