2017 Tour de France: Geraint Thomas wins, Valverde crashes out + Stage 2 preview

Top 20 after Stage 1

 

Stage 2: Düsseldorf to Liège

Geraint Thomas (Sky) was a popular but surprise winner yesterday winning not just taking his first ever Tour de France stage but the Yellow Jersey. This ten years on from Thomas' first Tour start in London in 2007.   

Despite a very good ride in the 2017 Giro's TT when injured, Geraint Thomas was not listed amongst the favourites. The TV cameras didn't follow his ride so there is only a brief clip of Thomas crossing the finish line with the new fastest time, which none of the later riders, including local favourite Tony Martin could beat.   

It was unfortunate that rain throughout the spoiled Düsseldorf's big day as well as making the TT more dangerous and difficult as Alejandro Valverde and Ion Izaguirre found to their cost crashing out on a corner around halfway through the course.  

Yesterday Team SKY were the big winners with Thomas and three other riders including Chris Froome (+ 12 seconds) in the top eight on the stage and so also on General Classification. Froome put seconds into all of his rivals for the overall win. Simon Yates is 25 seconds behind Froome, Richie Porte (35), Nairo Quintana (36) plus the big loss of Valverde, Thibaut Pinot (38), Romain Bardet (39), Fabio Aru (40), Alberto Contador (42) and Bauke Mollema (1.06).

Stage 2: Düsseldorf to Liège (203.5 kms)
Widely expected to be a sprinters stage with just two category 4 climbs. The first very early on and the second 20 kilometres from the finish. Much of the longish stage is pretty flat getting a little bumpy as Liège approaches but not enough to upset the top sprinters.
 

Unfortunately the forecast is for light rain. Furthermore, the first few stages of the Tour de France are always nervous with the risk of crashes. Hopefully there won't be any serious crashes today.



A new time and important measure at the finish has just been introduced - splits on the finish will be taken as three minutes instead of just one. This means that the general classification riders can now hang back a little bit leaving more space to the sprinters and their lead-out trains, so hopefully fewer crashes in the last kilometre of a stage. 

Favourites for the first stage are sprinters: André Greipel, Peter Sagan, Arnaud Démare, Mark Cavendish, John Degenkolb, Michael Matthews, Nacer Bouhanni and Alexander Kristoff. 

I'm going to opt for either Griepel or Kittel. It will be interesting to see how Cavendish goes after his illness. Difficult to count out Cav, even if not fully fit, as he does have a very good sprint team including Bernard Eisel, Mark Renshaw and Edward Boassen Hagen.   

2017 Tour de France: Stage 1 TT Düsseldorf

The 2017 Tour de France starts in Düsseldorf with a 14 kilometre time trial. The course is very largely flat with the few climbs essentially from going over two bridges over the Rhine. It is an ideal course for a strong, powerful time trial specialist like Tony Martin and probably not ideal for lightweight climbers. At 14K it could long enough for some of the favourites to lose time, although not enough time to count by the time the Tour reaches Paris on 23rd July.

Given today's forecast for heavy rain at times it is fortunate that there a few corners on this course and some long straights. Even so rain will make this short TT more of a lottery both from the increased possibility of crashes and if some riders race in the rain, while others ride in the dry.

The forecasters are not in agreement over when it will be raining or how hard. The BBC has opted for heavy rain for much of the day except around 2pm when the rain is expected to be lighter. The forecast on the official Tour website is for scattered light showers. Other forecasts have heavy rain in the morning tailing off to some light rain in the afternoon. 

If it is very wet I would expect the Yellow Jersey contenders to ride more cautiously, so as to avoid crashing as a few seconds lost here is much better than a bad crash. 

Let's hope that after all the build up the forecasts are confounded and that it is dry in Düsseldorf this afternoon. 

Contenders for the stage 
Many would love to see Tony Martin win today and certainly he is probably the favourite but not by a big margin. Other contenders include Richie Porte, although if it is wet Richie may be reluctant to go full gas, Jonathan Castroviejo, Primoz Roglic and possibly Steve Cummings who is the UK's 2017 Time Trial Champion.

Elie Gesbert is the first rider off at 15.15 CET. Riders start at one minute intervals with Chris Froome, as defending champion last of the 198 competitors off at 18.32. Tony Martin's start time is 18.20.     

The first rider is off at 15.15      

2017 Le Tour de France starts tomorrow in Düsseldorf

 The route of the 2017 Tour de France 

Starting on 1st July in Düsseldorf 

and finishing in Paris on 23rd July

Stage 1: 14km individual TT 

It's that magical three weeks of the year again – the Tour de France starts tomorrow with a 14 kilometre flat time trial in the centre of Düsseldorf. At 14 kilometres it is a least twice the distance of most prologues and long enough to create some gaps between the favourites for the Yellow Jersey.

The Tour is often not as exciting as the Giro d'Italia or the Vuelta but even so as the biggest bike race and sporting event in the world it has its own magic.

Overall
Yellow
Will Chris Froome win his 4th Tour? He is yet to win a race this year and his time trial in the Dauphine was disappointing. However, form in the Dauphine isn't always real indicator to how riders perform in the Tour. If Froome is back to his best he might get a flying start from tomorrow's TT, at least over Nairo Quintana and Romain Bardet but unlikely to gain time over Alberto Contador or Richie Porte. 

Froome's rivals include Romain Bardet, who was second last year. Bardet will look to win this year but will the curse of French expectations in not having a Tour winner since Bernard Hinault won the 1985 edition. Richie Porte is strongly fancied this year after winning the Tour Down Under and the Tour of Romandie. However, he lost the Dauphine on the last day when he was left isolated by his team, although he fought hard to have his first place just losing out to Jakob Fulsang, who could be a contender if he can hold his form. Also Porte has yet to really perform over the full three weeks of a Grand Tour but this year could be different. And what of Fabio Aru, Fulsang's team mate? At 28 he should be in his prime and he was very impressive when he won last Sunday's Italian Road Race Championship.

Nairo Quintana nearly won this year's Giro d'Italia losing to Tom Dumoulin in the TT on the last day. We will have to see if he has fully recovered from the Giro. With only 34 kms of TTs this year he should not be in danger of losing important time on his rivals but that has to be set against there only being three mountain top finishes. Alberto Contador had the bad luck to crash on the opening stage last year. Although, he can be counted on making the racing exciting does Contador, at 34, have the form to win the Tour once again.  

Could it all come down to the final time trial on 22nd July in Marseille which includes the sharp steep climb up to Notre Dame de la Garde?    

Green 
Peter Sagan. 

Stage 1 contenders   
Will look at this in a post tomorrow.