Bernal safely through tough Tour opener

29 Aug 2020

Bernal safely through tough Tour opener

Tour de France - Stage 1 » Nice › Nice, 156km

Egan Bernal emerged safely through a brutal opening day at the Tour de France as wet roads and crashes slowed a nervous peloton.
 
The racing debut for the INEOS Grenadiers demanded absolute concentration as rain turned the roads around Nice into a treacherous challenge. The team rallied around Bernal and, with the organisation taking the decision to neutralise the general classification times at the 3km to go mark, got him into a position of safety. Richard Carapaz also finished safely alongside his team-mate on the Promenade des Anglais.
 
Numerous crashes punctuated the action, with Pavel Sivakov and Andrey Amador both hitting the ground twice during the day. Sivakov spent much of the stage off the back of the peloton, finishing 13 minutes down on a bruising day that saw a number of big names caught up in accidents.
 
As the peloton decided to neutralise the final climb and descent, the action resumed with 20km to go and the expected sprint finish. It was Alexander Kristoff (UAE-Team Emirates) who prevailed to take the race’s first yellow jersey.
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Reaction

- Luke Rowe

"I think the problem was just the fact that it literally hasn’t rained here for two or three months – then you get one day where it rains and it’s literally like ice. I think most teams have at least half their rider who have touched down today. We’ve had a couple but luckily we’ve passed through.
 
"We’ve got a riders organisation and there’s a couple of guys from each team in there. We spoke last night about how we’re going to approach the Tour de France in general, look after each other and do the right thing when it’s needed. And whilst you want to race and put on the best show, at the same time you could see just how many crashes there were and that was with the three descents being ridden at a very careful speed."
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Stage one results:

1. Alexander Kristoff (UAE-Team Emirates) 3:46:23
2. Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) s.t.
3. Cees Bol (Team Sunweb)
4. Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quick-Step)
5. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe)
26. Andrey Amador (INEOS Grenadiers) s.t.
44. Richard Carapaz (INEOS Grenadiers)
45. Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers)
76. Michal Kwiatkowski (INEOS Grenadiers) +2:29"
100. Dylan van Baarle (INEOS Grenadiers) +2:57"
112. Jonathan Castroviejo (INEOS Grenadiers) +3:03"
133. Luke Rowe (INEOS Grenadiers) 3:53"
172. Pavel Sivakov (INEOS Grenadiers) +13:04"