Tour: Impey is the first African in yellow

The German André Greipel, known as the Gorilla, wins. Sagan for the third time in six stages finishes second fueling the tale of the little Slovak Poulidor. Cavendish, with the clear signs of a fresh crash in view of the finish line, does not give up on the sprint but only arrives fourth also because, contrary to what he did in Marseille, his teammate Steegmans misses on the slight climb of the finish straight. “We have to accept the verdict”, was the lapidary comment by Cannonball who is already thinking of making up for it in tomorrow's Albi stage. Back on the podium as third Kittel, the winner of Bastia. Also said of the withdrawal of the Belgian Jurgen Van der Broeck, captain of the Lotto who finished fourth in last year's Tour, the chronicle of the stage, which led the riders from Aix-en-Provence to Montpellier through the Camargue, could be summed up entirely here, in the spectacular winning sprint by Greipel, if it weren't for the best placement obtained compared to teammate Gerrans, tonight wearing the yellow jersey is a South African from Johannesburg, born in 1984, Daryl Impey, one of the protagonists of the fantastic gallop of the 'Orica Greenedge on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice: even if Impey is descended from the Boers and as such is a white man, his yellow jersey is still an absolute novelty for the Tour which had never had a representative of the black continent at the top of the standings. "I didn't lose the jersey, I just passed it on to a friend," said Gerrans as Impey took to the podium for the awards. Another sign of the globalization of cycling which by now, to make itself understood in the world, has adopted English as its official language, supplanting French and Italian which for decades have reigned supreme in the world of two wheels. Tomorrow the Tour restarts from Montpellier towards Albi, another stage for sprinters, before tackling the two days in the Pyrenees. He will start again without Nacer Bouhanni and Janez Brajkovic. The young French sprinter, former national champion in 2012, retired in pain from his injuries after falling during the stage. The Slovenian captain of Astana also flew, hitting a traffic island: dazed and battered, he managed with difficulty to finish the leg but the wound in his knee immediately appeared too deep to allow him to continue. For Astana, winner of the Giro with Vincenzo Nibali, the Tour got off to a really bad start: after just six stages the Kazakh team has already lost three players: out of Brajkovic and with him also Fredrik Kessiakoff and Andrei Kashechkin.