The first road stage of this year's Tour de France played out in typical fashion, with nerves reverberating throughout the peloton on a day where pile-ups marked the journey to Brussels. The fireworks started early on when HTC-Columbia's Adam Hansen hit something on the road and ended up on the pavement.
The Australian had a broken collarbone as a result of his tumble, but refused to abandon on the road, instead holding out for the remote chance that he could continue on in the race. Hansen put in a bold ride, and managed to help bring the three breakaways back before retreating to the rear of the peloton to ride safely to the finish. He was expected to play a key role in the HTC-Columbia leadout train, and his diagnosis after the stage means he will be sorely missed by the team.
Crashes in the opening prologue had already made more room for the peloton on the narrow roads of Holland and Belgium, with Manuel Cardoso (Footon-Servetto-Fuji) and Mathias Frank (BMC Racing) both non-starters for stage one. The latter will be hugely missed by World champion Cadel Evans when the race hits the mountains, but the Australian's best bet for a high placing will likely be to ride aggressively on the roads of France. Cardoso will also be missed, with the Portuguese rider representing one of his Spanish team's best chances for victory in this year's race.
Echoing the 2007 edition of the Tour de France, where Marcus Burghardt tacoed his carbon front wheel after a close encounter with a dog, another canine fan jumped into the bunch during today's stage and caused a crash. David Millar and Ivan Basso were both involved in the incident, with Basso getting the worst of it, ending up with some damage to his equipment. The Italian came out okay though, and pulled off an impressive shoe change while riding alongside his team car.
The closing moments of the stage was where the race came to its boiling point. With two kilometers remaining a one-hundred degree turn saw two top sprinters crash their way out of contention. Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia) looked like he was trying to hold his ground on teammate Mark Renshaw's wheel, when a lean to the outside in the right hander to protect his space sent him straight through the turn and affected everyone to his outside. Triple World champion Oscar Freire was in the wrong place at the wrong time and also went down.
The adrenaline was pumping as the riders that made it through the carnage accelerated towards the line. Inside the final kilometer nearly the entire peloton was brought to an abrupt halt when several riders imploded after a touch of wheels. The remaining few hurled their way towards the line, but not before AG2r's Lloyd Mondory tangled himself up with Tyler Farrar and left the American still waiting for his first Tour de France stage victory.
A final effort from Thor Hushovd (Cervelo TestTeam) wasn't able to hold off Italian Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-Farnese Vini), who powered to the line and added another stage to his Grand Tour tally. Hushovd will be happy with his third place after green jersey contenders Cavendish, Farrar and Freire all missed out on valuable points. While the crashes did noting to impact the battle for the overall, the day's events could turn out to be a decisive moment for the maillot vert competition, and give the Norwegian an advantage all the way to Paris.