A Dramatic Start to the Tour
The last time I experienced such a wide range of emotions as I had at the finish of yesterday’s opening stage of this 2021 Tour de France was in 1992 and my first Tour gig with ESPN. Andy Hamptsen was about to win on l’Alp d’Huez – remember when Americans won the big races? Remember when we had a vibrant domestic racing circuit? Think the two might be related? – Anyway, Andy was on the way to win the historic race yet behind, at the very back of the peloton, bumping along in the spartan broom wagon with no AC, was our American hero Greg LeMond who had abandoned the race, ending his illustrious career in the most humiliating manner possible. It really was tragic and as such, pure gold for my producers so we hounded Greg at the finish stiffing poor Andy out of the hero-coverage that he so richly deserved.
Julian Alaphilippe had no concerns about a similar lack of media coverage after his spectacular, magical, breathtaking – you name it – win up the Fosse-aux-Loups (Forest of Wolves) finishing climb. His Deceunick-Quickstep team, of course nicknamed the Wolfpack just to add to the perfection of their day, was imperial throughout the stage, with the Tractor, big Tim Declercq, rarely absent from the front, commanding and controlling the peloton, bending it to his will.
Once the finale began, the Wolfpack kept control with Mattia Catteneo opening up the team lead-out into the climb, followed by Kasper Asgreen. At about three-kilometers from the finish, the wonderful Dries Devenyns came up from about 20th position in the line to the front, made a head-nod to Alaphilippe who promptly went left onto his teammate’s wheel. Devenyns accelerated hard, punishing their opposition, setting Alaphilippe up for the perfect attack that again, everyone knew was coming and could do absolutely nothing about. BOOM! Off he went, scampering up that climb, using a mix of little then big gears then back again. Head bobbing, face contorting, all the world screaming at their TV’s urging him on, while behind, the strongest men in cycling battled asphyxiation as best they could. Julian Alaphilippe won the first stage of the Tour de France, wearing his World Championship Rainbow Jersey which he’s now switched for the Yellow Jersey of Tour Leader, his 18th career Yellow. What’s even more, he has a stuffed Credit Lyonnais Lion to present to his newborn child. This is a happy man and everyone is happy for him.
The conventional wisdom was that Julian Alaphilippe’s spectacular run in Yellow at the 2019 Tour was one of those “periods of grace” for a good rider, exciting certainly, but one limited to a certain extent when things got really serious, such as the high mountains. That he’d summoned up all sorts of energy to perform as he did in a once-in-a-lifetime moment in the sun. The 2020 Tour confirmed that sentiment, it was felt that there he showed his true level. But then he became World Champion followed by a great ride in the Tour of Flanders which is where I began to think differently. The Frenchman is 137 pounds, a tiny bird of a racer, and there he was in Big Man territory, everyone outweighing him by 20-30 pounds, and he was in for the win. Alaphilippe’s 2021 Classic’s season went well, a win and two second’s on top of some fine racing action, but it was the Tour de Suisse that things really turned for me with his second place in the mountain time trial, ahead of luminaries such as Richard Carapaz. There have been few riders in history capable of such feats, both climbing high mountains at speed yet able to duke it out on the cobblestones. I’m seeing another run as in 2019, maybe not holding the Yellow as long as he did then, but certainly entertaining us every kilometer of the way as he fights to hold it.
There were two absolutely dreadful crashes yesterday. The first was caused by a roadside spectator. Ok, to every one of you out there standing in the most inconvenient spot to take a selfie, or blindly walking across the street on your phone in front of traffic, or even better, loudly talking on your phone while the poor checkout person tries to finish the sale, this woman who crashed the Tour de France is you. So, so you. Oblivious to anything but her 15-minutes (seconds but now lifetime – everywhere she goes from now on people will point and say: “She crashed the Tour de France”) of fame, she turned away from the race to face the TV cameras, held up her stupid, ugly sign not understanding that half of it was in the road and eventually in Tony Martin’s face, causing a massive pileup. A mound of bike riders, all writhing in pain beneath one another. All for a selfie.
It was clear that the second crash was coming. The Tour had this terrible habit of putting tiny roads into the finale of the first stage, the stage where the riders are the freshest and most nervous and aggressive. On this one, there was a climb – which today the entire peloton makes it over as one – followed by a long descent on very narrow roads with a tight turn at the bottom into the finishing climb. The peloton was so sardine-can tight on that 80 kph descent, so aggressive and forceful that I was positively frightened for them. And of course, a touch of wheels and down they all went in what was, I believe, the worst crash I’ve ever seen in cycling.
Underneath it all was Chris Froome, the four-time Tour winner, who was completing a two-year come back from the most dreadful set of injuries, trying to put a brave face on his diminished physical abilities by saying that he would be a team man for this Tour as he continues to rebuild, knowing that no one really believes it. He bravely picked himself up, got back on his Factor bicycle, and was shepherded to the finish by Rick Zabel. Froome was shaking, visibly shaking hard from his core to his head. It was just terrible to watch the broken champion in that state. Was he shaking from pain? Or had the horrors of his crash of two years ago, horrors that he’d suppressed in his maniacal ‘Thumbs Up! Cheery Cheery!’ approach to the comeback finally surfaced after he plunged, headfirst, at 80-kph, into his fellow racers and onto the hard, unforgiving pavement.