Here is the real Mark Cavendish again, with his portentous and bold sprint that breaks months of the German duopoly with Kittel and Greipel and gives him victory no. 27 in the Tour – only Merckx and Hinault have done better – also his first yellow jersey. A day to remember for Cannonball on a milestone full of history, that of Utah Beach, one of the beaches where the Allied landings in Normandy took place on June 6, 1944. A regal sprint, worthy of a cinema for its power and choice of trajectories, on a very long straight exposed to the wind from the Channel: Cavendish first comes back on the right Sagan who had started long, then unleashing all his watts, Kittel also lands dry and wins hands up . On the podium with his little daughter, it's a big party for the Size Data champion who stocks up on jerseys, the yellow one he has been chasing for years and also the green one in the points classification. Greipel, the Gorilla who dominated the Giro before leaving after the winning sprint in Bibione, was only fourth.
But the first stage of the Tour was not just an exciting festival of sprinters. It also offered moments of great suspense when 78km from the finish on one of the many watersheds, which are a constant threat to the integrity of the riders, Alberto Contador ended up on the ground hitting his right shoulder and side. The Spanish champion got up quickly rather battered and with the help of his teammates and a good dose of platoon fair-play he was able to return quickly, even changing a shoe that had become out of order due to the impact while running. At Tinkoff they are optimistic, the Pistolero is tough and the abrasions are superficial. But what a scare. After all, the first week of the Tour has always exposed cyclists to these pitfalls by racing in the North on routes exposed to the wind, with the entire caravan of cyclists still racing which reduces the road to an authentic gut. The first stages, if they are not decisive for the final victory of the Tour, however, can already offer many indications on who is starting to lose it. And it wasn't just Contador who took this risk, given what happened in the middle of the group in the final sprint with an impressive carom triggered by a Katusha, the Dane Mikael Morkov, who slammed into the barriers and blew up a dozen cyclists. That's why at the end of the first stage Aru and Nibali were happy: the important thing, waiting for the Pyrenees, is to stand up or better in the saddle avoiding bad blows and fractures.
