Tour de France Summary

So the organisers wanted the 100th Editiion of the Tour de France to be a memorable one, and so it will be, but for the wrong reason.

Stage one was set up for the sprinters and Mark Cavendish was bidding to become the race leader and don the yellow jersey for the first time in his career, even the bookies had him as outright favourite, so surely it was just a formality then? Not quite!

The race was going well with the sprinters where they should be then the Orica Green Edge Team Bus decided to get stuck under the finishing line arch throwing the race into chaos. With the bus wedged under the arch and the riders quickly approaching the last few kilometres the race organisers made the decision to bring the finishing line back 3k. The team cars relayed this message to the riders and the pace picked up as the new finishing line was not far away.

The Orica Green Edge team bus was then freed from the finishing line and ushered away from the track while the organisers moved the finish back to the original line. Team directors duly got the message and frantically radioed their riders to let them know that the finish was now back to the original line. It all came a little too late as the riders had started jostling for position for what they thought was the new finish.

Andre Greipel tried to ride through a gap that wasn’t there and clipped one of the Omega Pharma Quick-Step riders, ripping off his own rear derailleur (Greipel) in the process, but more importantly knocking the Omega Pharma Quick-Step rider to the ground which in turn resulted in a huge crash wiping out many of the favoured sprinters! Sagan took a hard fall that ruled him out of challenging the print as did a number of other riders. Mark Cavendish managed to avoid hitting the deck but got caught up in the crash meaning he had to stop, ending his chances of contesting the sprint!

In the end it was Argos-Shimano’s Marcel Kittel that took the win on what can only be described as a shambles at the finish! Due to the confusion over the actual finishing line and the fact it was moved then moved back at very short notice, resulting in a huge pile up, the race organisers decided to award all riders the same time. Strangely and infuriating for Mark Cavendish was that although they award all riders with the same time they didn’t award all riders/sprinters with the same points.

So there you have it, the 100th edition of Tour de France will be remembered for the chaotic and shambolic first stage! At least Orica Green Edge got some good advertising and TV coverage from the stage, although it did cost them a fine of 2000 Swiss Francs (£1,392).

Stage two passed without major incident with Chris Froome sending out a warning to his challengers when he made a break for it on the tough climb leading onto a tricky decent near the end of the stage. According to Froome the plan was to distance himself from the peloton on that climb so he could take the tricky decent at his own pace and avoid any potential incident. Richie Porte helped delivery Froome to the top of the climb unscathed.

The only potential incident and near pile up came near the end when a dog, off it’s lead wandered into the middle of the road with the peloton tearing round the corner. A spectator tried to get the dog off the road but had to retreat before causing a pile up. The dog then made it’s own way to safety, thankfully without causing the second huge pile up in two days!

Jan Bakelants of Radioshack Lepoard made an early break for it at the end and managed to hold off the rest of the peloton to take stage 2.

Fantasy Tour de France mini-league update

With the Tour de France under way it also means that our Fantasy TDF mini-league in partnership with Gatorade is also under way. With the hectic scenes on stage 1 there wasn’t a lot of points scored, with many people like my self finishing the day with ZERO points! Stage two was a better day for scoring, well not for myself who again finished with ZERO points, along with 3 other teams.

The leader board so far looks like this:

Afton Angels managed by Chris Hunter storms into an early lead with Mikes Bikes managed by Michael Evans hot in pursuit 66 points behind. Husband and wife combo Ian and Tamara Hockey form the chasing pack with just 4 points seperating the two of them.