Jasper Philipsen won a chaotic opening phase of the Tour de France to take the first yellow sweater from the race.
Philipsen took his 10th career tour podium, but the first to put him in yellow while he defeated Biniam Girmay in a much reduced forest sprint after Zijwind had split the peloton into pieces.
General hopeful Remco Empelel and Primoz Roglic were both caught, admitted 39 seconds to the most important favorites Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, with the Deen having done a lot to the splits in the last 20 kilometers of the 185 km stage that started and ended in Lille.
Fewer than 40 riders came to the front group, but the Alpecin-Decuninck team of Philipsen had four and they let it count, so that Philipsen put together an ideal forefront to beat Girmay and Sorenhjold comfortably.
“It’s really great,” said the Belgian. “My 10th victory is something I will never forget. The team performance was incredible. I think we were there all day. It was very nervous, but we knew it could be our day today and we have to be in front and we were in the split.
“The team did great and in the end we could just use and finish our strength …
“I dreamed (the yellow sweater). I already had the green sweater from two years ago, but to let the yellow sweater hang somewhere in my house in the coming years will be great.”
Philipsen became the first pure sprinter to have yellow since Alexander Kristoff won the opening phase in Nice in 2020, but it was far from a simple forest finish, because strong side winds in North France was added to the stress of the opening day of the Tour, which produced Chaos.
Benjamin Thomas, the Olympic Madison champion, ended the day in the King of the Mountains sweater, but only after they crashed against Matteo Vercher when they exceeded the line that fought for the point at the top of the paved climb of Mont Cassel.
Thomas was part of an original exclusion of five men who came in before the center point of the stage when teams fought for position.
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Another rider to go down was former world time test champion Filippo Ganna, and the Italian later left the race, a huge blow to the Ineos Grenadiers.
When summarizing the stage, Geraint Thomas, on his last Tour de France, said: “I should have stopped last year to be honest. It was very stressful.
“It is a big, great shame to lose pippo. I didn’t look the crash and it didn’t look that bad, but he gave his head a bit knocked, so there is a concussion, which is the right one, but it is a big, big shame to lose him.”
The yellow jersey is expected to change from the Scholder on Sunday, given the lumpy finish to the 209 km phase two from Lauwin-Planque to Boulogne-sur-Mer.
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