The Tour de France 2020 is about to start! The streets of Utrecht are lined with excited fans (can you imagine?) as the riders, nervously or confidently depending on their disposition, make their last preparations. Number one on the agenda today is obviously the fight for the stage win and the yellow jersey that comes with it. Here’s another quick look at the favorites:
FL
TT
PR
RS
Durbridge
73
81
81
74
Vlatos
72
81
81
71
Sütterlin
71
80
80
77
Lammertink
74
80
79
76
Kwok
76
79
79
73
Dillier
70
80
79
77
Haugard
72
79
79
77
Hepburn
71
79
79
77
Dennis
72
78
81
75
Oliveira
72
78
78
75
Politt
73
78
76
73
Among the top tier of GC contenders, Madrazo and Sicard would be the most likely to gain some time on their rivals, but gaps shouldn’t be too large.
Greek time trial champion Vlatos has the honor to officially commence the race - a race he intends to start off with a stage win. It’s remarkable that the first rider on the road is immediately a Top 3 favorite, but we will now know very quickly what times will be good ones. Vlatos starts us off with 8’42 at the checkpoint and 17’23 at the finish line.
17’23
His time looks pretty decent, as the next rider, Thomas, finishes 45 seconds slower. He is a decent time trialist and was a contender for the white jersey today, but either Vlatos was remarkably strong or the French just didn’t have the legs.
18’08
Van Baarle’s time points to the latter. Overtaking Tivani on his way to the finish, he manages to stay within 12 seconds of the Greek leader.
17’35
Schleck is the first GC contender on his bike today. He’s not the best time trialist anymore, but quite a few other GC riders are in his general range and they might be worried: Schleck loses almost one and a half minutes.
18’46
Oliveira now comes to the line. He was a disappointing provisional 8th at the checkpoint, but gaps are very small. At the line, he’s 6th for the moment, on the same time as Wolf and Rajapakshage. Not quite matching his ambitions there.
17’49
Van Zandbeek finishes moments later, 2 seconds faster and himself tied with Zakarin for a shared 4th place. Turek is between the two and Van Baarle.
17’47
Another contender for white at the end of the day is Powless. He does better than Thomas, though just by five seconds. A few riders later, an overall white jersey contender in Roman comes to the line, almost 2 minutes slower than the American.
18’03
Vangstad falls just short of the provisional Top 5, finishing with the same time as Tennant ahead of him.
17’48
But then we do have some movement in the top positions. Norwegian champ Haugard beats Van Baarle by a mere second to slip into second place.
17’34
In comparison, Sütterlin’s time is a pretty big disappointment. He comes in behind both mentioned above, barely beating Turek to be in provisional 4th place.
17’43
With the first fourth of all riders now at the finish, here’s a quick look at the Top 15. Onodera leads the white jersey sweepstakes, but a few contenders are still to come.
But first, Stannard picks up where his Dutch teammate left off and overtakes Roberge around a kilometer before the finish. But he can’t match Van Baarle at the line, where he’s currently 8th, in the middle of 8 riders - from 6th to 13th - who are seperated by just 2 seconds.
17’47
Then comes Lammertink and Vlatos’ time continues to hold up extremely well. The Dutch finishes 22 seconds off the lead. At most 3-4 riders remain who might still kick the Festina rider off his hot seat.
17’45
Ligthart would not be expected to be among those, but at the checkpoint, he’s just 3 seconds behind! But then he runs out of steam a little bit and loses another 14. Still, that’s enough for 4th at the moment.
17’40
Now, what is this? O'Shea comes out of nowhere to beat Vlatos by fractions of a second … at the checkpoint. He can’t keep that up, can he?
But first, we get another impression of how the time gaps between GC contenders might shake out. Carapaz is by no means a great time trialist, but slightly better than Schleck and he gains more than half a minute on him. Maybe the GC fight will be impacted more than we (or rather, I) anticipated?
18’15
Then O'Shea comes to the line and … he doesn’t get the lead. Not a big surprise, but he had us wondering for a bit there. In the end, he falls behind Haugard and Van Baarle by 2 and 1 second, respectively, but stays ahead of many nominally stronger time trialists.
17’36
Here comes the next challenger! Kwok, too has beaten Vlatos by less than a second at the checkpoint, but by now we know that the Greek was incredibly strong in the second half. If he beats Kwok, that’s one more name crossed off on the way to the stage win.
But here’s another unexpected development! Fominykh doesn’t just beat Vlatos by a few milliseconds, but by a full five seconds at the checkpoint! Surely, he has to have overextended himself so far, right?
First, we turn our attention back to Kwok, who faded in similar fashion to O'Shea and actually finishes a second behind him, 5th for now.
17’37
Then comes Politt with a decent time, another one in that big bunch around 10th to 15th place.
17’47
Fominykh flies to the line, using Budyak’s slipstream just a little bit there before overtaking him. The seconds tick away and a new leader seems actually possible for just a moment … but the Kazakh falls short by just 2 small seconds! Still, a phenomenal ride!
17’25
With just over half of all riders done for the day, here’s another quick look at the leaderboard. Quite a few surprises in the Top 5 even, as well as some disappointments like Sütterlin. Interestingly, and undetected by our cameras, Geoghegan Hart has done tremedously well and could challenge for the white jersey here today.
Chiarello is the next rider of note to finish, he does reasonably well, a bit faster than Carapaz, but the main GC contenders are obviously still coming.
18’04
Then comes Ganna on his quest to claim the white jersey. He’s actually close to the provisional Top 10, but lands less than a single second behind Geoghegan Hart! With Fernandes and Goldstein firmly behind them, the only man who can realistically still beat Geoghegan Hart is Ganna’s teammate Cavagna.
17’45
One of the few riders thought capable of toppling Vlatos is Dillier, but he was already 7 seconds behind him at the time check and doesn’t gain anything in the second half of the course. Only 10th place for him for now.
17’43
And now we’re really in the fight for the stage win. Barring any surprises, Durbridge is the last real threat for Vlatos. The Australian is 2 seconds faster at the checkpoint, but a few have been faster there, none at the finish line. But if one can sustain it, surely it’s him.
A few riders ahead, Cheung completes a decent ride, just a second behind guys like Sütterlin and Dillier.
17’44
And then it’s time for the decisive moment! The clock is ticking, it’s just as close as with Fominykh!
Spoiler
But in the end, Durbridge even falls behind the UBS rider to third place, 4 seconds behind Vlatos. Is there anybody left to take this away from him now? Hard to see that happening.
17’27
Durbridge’s compatriot Dennis also takes a shot. He’s 2 seconds ahead of Vlatos at the checkpoint in what is becoming a theme here now, but also continuing that theme, he can’t quite keep it up. Strong performance, though, and he even gets on the provisional podium, a single second ahead of Durbridge!
17’26
Then Cavagna comes to the line, a good 13 seconds slower than Geoghegan Hart, who has the white jersey virtually locked up now.
17’58
With the (highly unlikely) exception of Madrazo later on, Hepburn is the last possible contender for the stage win today. But he’s more than 10 seconds off the pace at the checkpoint already and ends up outside of the Top 20. Barring a miracle, today’s winner will be Vlatos.
17’49
Which means we can turn our attention to the GC now. Overall white jersey top favorite Godoy suffers badly today and comes close to a 2 minute deficit to the leading time. That is of course not the measuring stick for him, but still, this could have gone better.
19’16
At least slightly better: Alarcon, who is on a very similar level, skill-wise, but is six seconds faster.
19’10
Unfortunately missed by the cameras, Schelling has an okay ride, but compared to someone like Chiarello (who was 27 seconds faster), he underperforms a bit. He overtakes Nizzolo in the process, who will still be happy today with his teammate’s (likely) win.
18’31
Roglic loses a bit more - again, not terrible, but not great either.
18’42
One last pure time trialist is still to finish and that’s Hansen. He does well and snatches up the final Top 10 spot - for now, at least. One or two riders out there still might push him off it.
17’39
Having just been overtaken by the Dane, Berhane comes in next. He’s one of the worst time trialists of the GC riders, and it shows, as he finishes in the range of Godoy and Alarcon.
19’12
One of the riders still capable of entering the stage Top 10: Eastman, who’s actually 9th at the checkpoint right now!
But first, Quintana comes to the line. Compared to the likes of Schelling or Roglic, he fares very well, and only Chiarello has been stronger among the climber so far.
18’13
That changes instantly when Eastman crosses the finish line, though. He’s just 20 seconds off the lead in 15th place.
17’43
Meintjes is next, he’s right there with Schelling, time-wise.
18’31
The exact same is true for Galta.
18’31
Given his capabilities on paper, it’s a very decent result for Olivier to lose only five seconds to those two.
18’36
Barguil on the other hand won’t be particularly happy with his time. Losing half a minute to Quintana and more than 15 seconds to some of his other rivals is not ideal.
18’48
The GC podium contenders are coming closer to the finish now, starting with Spilak. One of the better time trialists among them, he delivers a solid time, beaten only by Eastman so far.
18’03
Meanwhile, Sicard sets a really solid time at the intermediate check, currently 13th there, 11 seconds of Fominykh’s best time there.
Unexpectedly, Herklotz actually beats that time by one second! His strong prologue skills may come into play here.
Even more shocking, that is a full 10 seconds faster than the last man crossing the line, Madrazo! The Spaniard will have counted this as one of the days he might be able to gain some time on Herklotz, but he seems to be in terrible shape!
But for now, we turn our attention back to the finish. Morton is coming in, he loses 45 seconds to Vlatos, 25 to Eastman and 5 to Spilak - all very much within expected limits.
18’08
Last year’s runner-up Dombrowski follows next, he loses quite a bit, as he funnily enough finishes with the exact same time as all of Meintjes, Schelling and Galta.
18’31
With a strong finish, a Top 15 on the day may be possible for Sicard, does he have it? No, not quite. He drops from 14th at the checkpoint to 28th at the finish, but loses just 5 seconds to Eastman and gains on everyone else.
17’48
Well, everyone except for Herklotz. The German turns in a fantastic ride, is this the first step on his way to yellow in Paris?
17’46
It might be, if Madrazo’s ride here is any indication for the rest of the race. Obviously, this is way too early to make any such sweeping statements, but this time comes as a massive disappointment to the reigning champ, who, instead of gaining time, loses up to 20 seconds on some of his biggest rivals.
18’09
What an eventful opener to this year’s Tour. We have a favorite winning to take yellow with Vlatos - back-to-back opening day stage wins for Festina after Stauff did it last year -, but we also have some surprises, like Fominykh in 2nd and Van Baarle in 6th place, as well as Geoghegan Hart in white.
And then we have the GC fight, where Eastman, but especially Herklotz and Sicard are among the big winners. Let’s take a quick look at how things stand there:
16
Eastman
Azteca - NBCSN
22
Herklotz
Team Puma - SAP
+ 3
31
Sicard
Air France - KLM
+ 5
52
Spilak
Generali
+ 21
53
Chiarello
Evonik - ELKO
s.t.
57
Madrazo
Gazelle
+ 23
61
Morton
Bennelong - Mitchelton
+ 25
69
Quintana
Rakuten Pro Cycling
+ 30
70
Carapaz
Volvo acc. by Spotify
+ 32
94
Schelling
Team UBS
+ 48
95
Meintjes
cycleYorkshire
s.t.
96
Galta
Aker - MOT
s.t.
97
Dombrowski
eBuddy
s.t.
104
Olivier
Aegon - Peroni
+ 53
110
Brenes
Indosat Ooredoo
+ 55
117
Roglic
Isostar - Specialized
+ 59
124
Schleck
EA Vesuvio
+ 1'03
126
Barguil
Moser - Sygic
+ 1'05
159
Alarcon
Volvo acc. by Spotify
+ 1'27
163
Berhane
ISA - Hexacta
+ 1'31
165
Godoy
EA Vesuvio
+ 1'33
Even over just these 15 kilometers, gaps of up to 45 seconds among the podium contenders and almost one and a half minutes between some of the Top 10 contenders have opened - some gaps more expected than others.
Throughout the race, we’ll also have an eye on the Lanterne Rouge, the last place in the GC. Speirs is the first rider to have the questionable honor and it’s not particularly close: He’s 53 seconds slower than second-to-last Karatzios and a full 4 minutes slower than Vlatos.
Lastly, cycleYorkshire has wrapped up the team classification closely ahead of Generali, a result that will likely stand until at least the day after tomorrow. On the other hand, we will for sure have a new rider leading the points classification and white may be up in the air as well. Lots to look forward to on Stage 2!
Tour de France 
