Welcome to the coverage of 2017 Tour de France! The Grand Depart is on Carhaix (Bretagne) this year by the first time ever. The first stage will see the riders ride 165 km before finishing the stage in Cap Frehel, where the best sprinters in the race will fight for the first Maillot Jaune. If you look to the profile in detail, youÂ’ll see that the final km are not as flat as most sprinters would like, and whether that bumps might not be enough to see attacks, they will harm the less punchy sprinters, so riders like Van Stayen and Demare should be the favourite for the win today, especially the Belgian. As for every sprint finish, you can never count out Swift, who proved in Paris - Nice that he can win in this type of route
The 184 riders that will ride this yearÂ’s Tour de France are all ready to start the race, waiting for the race director to let them ride
The first attack of the Tour is made by Gallego Martin. He is followed by former LBL winner, Fritsch and another couple of riders, but Evonik, having the stage favourite today, doesnÂ’t want to have lots of riders in the breakaway
After 20 km of racing, three riders are allowed to escape from the bunch. Neither of them are too strong for this terrain, so teams like Aegon, Evonik or Puma are very happy with this
Mundle Duchesne Gunman
In the only categorised climb of the day, the three riders in the breakaway will fight to be the first KoM leader. Duchesne is clearly the best puncheur, and should have gotten that reward, but somehow he was out-sprinted by the other two riders. Taylor Gunman will be the first KoM leader of Tour de France this year after being first in Cote de Gurunhuel
Cote de Gurunhuel - Cat.4
Gunman 5
Mundle 3
Duchesne 1
In the intermediate sprint placed in Goudelin, this time Duchesne is able to beat both Gunman and Mundle, but this gives him nothing compared with wearing the KoM jersey in the Tour de France
Intermediate Sprint - Goudelin
Duchesne 6
Gunman 4
Mundle 2
Still over 70 km to go in this stage, but the sprinter teams are already working in the front of the bunch to reduce the current gap to the breakaway. They only have 4 minutes at this point, but itÂ’s always better to have the distance controlled way before the final 10-20 kms
Less than 40 km to the leading trio, and while their difference to the bunch is now only around 2 minutes, they keep working together. They wonÂ’t make it to the end for sure, but any extra TV time they can get for their teams will be welcomed
20 km left and the bunch is now clearly seeing the breakaway. The gap is one minute now while Evonik, Aegon and Nemiroff are pulling in the bunch for both catching the breakaway and controlling the lead-out of the sprint
Surprisingly, the breakaway riders are holding up the bunch with 10 km to go. They still have 55 seconds on a group led by Aegon and Evonik riders, although most of the work in the leading group is being done by Mundle
5 km left in the stage and the breakaway still has 20 seconds on the bunch, where Villella has been pulling so hard in that little hill that other riders are having troubles to follow him. There are no trains yet, and with the breakaway yet to be caught, the sprinters teams will have a hard time trying to build one
Mundle, Duchesne and Gunman are still in the lead with only 3 km to go. Evonik is building a nice train, but they have a problem; Van Stayen is nowhere to be seen in the first places
With 2 km left, the breakaway is finally getting caught, right in the moment that we have a km uphill. Van Stayen has been able to join his teamÂ’s train, and the same happens for Swift. Demare and Vanderbiest are following Polivoda in the right side of the road, but they will have to switch to other trains soon if they want to have any options
Mundle
Duchesne
Gunman
Stoltz
Dzamastagic
Fonseca
Van der Sanden
Dakteris
Sbaragli
Boeckmans
Polivoda
Van Stayen
Swift
Nooytens
Demare
Porsev
Vanderbiest
Reimer
Keukeleire
Gesink
Wippert
Coutinho
Golovash
Only 1Â’5 km left, and the hardest part of the finale is in the next 300 metres, with slopes over 7%. Sbaragli is doing a perfect job for Swift, who has Boeckmans and Demare on his wheel, but in the left side Van Stayen is not very-well placed, as his lead-out is failing
We are under the Flamme Rouge, and Sbaragli is making a little mistake, as he hasnÂ’t realised that Swift is slightly losing his wheel as the Italian went into full force mode. Close to the fence, Boeckmans looks to be leading-out Demare. Very surprising to have Porsev so well placed, right on SwiftÂ’s wheel, while Van Stayen is now completely off-position, having lost Dakteris and DzamagasticÂ’s wheels
700 metres left and all riders are now sprinting. Sbaragli still has that little margin to his team-mate, who has opened his sprint going to the middle of the road. Boeckmans and Demare are next to the Brit, but they might suffer when Sbaragli fades, as they might need to go around him and lose some speed. Van Stayen clearly doesnÂ’t have his day and has even stopped his sprint, seeing that he canÂ’t even make it to the top10
Sbaragli is now fading with only 400 metres to go, while behind him there are four riders in paralell, with Porsev coming as the quickest of all, although he might be closed by Swift and Boeckmans, as the gap between the two riders is very slim. Demare keeps going close to the fence, not being involved in the fight for positioning as the rest. Keukeleire is also coming really strong, but he will run out of space to be able to fight for the win
As i said, Porsev was forced to slow down to avoid crashing, and this might have cost him the win. Boeckmans is clearly fading now, which leaves only Swift and Demare to fight for the win with 200 metres left. Also, watch out for Keukeleire, who keeps being too much faster than the rest
Only 100 metres to go and the fight for the win canÂ’t be more close. Keukeleire has already passed Boeckmans and is aiming to do the same with Porsev
It will be a photo-finish final, but it seems like Swift is the one getting away with the win
Effectively, Ben Swift wins in Cap Frehel and is the first rider to lead the 2017 Tour de France. The best sprinter of the world winning the opening stage of the race, as most have predicted.
So close for Demare to take the win and the lead in his home race, but he have to be only second today. Anyway, heÂ’ll have the chance in the next two stages to take the lead, as both stages favour him.
Porsev holds off Keukeleire to take a podium in a Tour stage, which was not expected at all
Boeckmans rounds up the top5 after the lack of power in the final 300 metres
Reimer beats an incredible Sbaragli, who Swift has to thank most of his win, to take sixth today, while Vanderbiest, Coutinho and Van Stayen complete the top10 of the first stage of TdF
At same point it looked like there could be a gap between the sprinters and the rest of the bunch, but with Reindhart being so badly placed, he has helped to close that gap, with PolivodaÂ’s help, that blew up in the final metres to be placed in the middle of the split
Ben Swift goes to the podium to receive his Maillot Jaune of race leader
Exciting first stage of the Tour de France despite being a flat stage. The breakaway which almost made it to the end, then a messy uphill sprint, and finally Aegon bossing the finish.
See you tomorrow for the first hilly stage of the race
