Tour de France 2024 Stage 1

June 29, 2024 All of the speculation, nerves, excitement, and anticipation have been building up to the start of Stage 1. We will soon know who has the form and who does not because the opening stage from Florence to Rimini has 3,600M of elevation gain over seven categorized climbs. Plenty of teams were interested in the break and it finally went after 18KM of racing, made up of, Matej Mohorič of Bahrain-Victorious, Valentin Madouas of Groupama-FDJ, Ion Izagirre of Cofidis, Clément Champoussin of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Frank van den Broek of DSM-Firmenich, and teammates Sandy Dujardin and Mattéo Vercher of TotalEnergies. Uno-X Mobility were not happy with the break and tried to numerous times with different riders to bridge up. Jonas Abrahamsen was the one to do it with about 170KM to go as Ryan Gibbons of Lidl-Trek latched on for a free ride up to the break. Over the top of the first climb, Vercher was dropped but the rest of the break extended their lead to 5 minutes 35 seconds. EF-Education EasyPost led the peloton and had the break down to 4 minutes over the third climb with 107KM to go. The heat was starting to take its toll on the riders. The peloton was getting trimmed down and the break had lost Dujardin and Champoussin. A big push was made by the GC teams to get to the front before the foot of the 6KM climb with 75KM to go. UAE set a tough pace up the Côte de Barbotto that sent many riders out the back, leaving only about 60 riders in the bunch with 70KM to race. Romain Bardet of DSM-Firmenich attacked the peloton and bridged to the break over the top of the Côte de San Leo with 48KM to go but only Madouas, Abrahamsen and van den Broek were left and their gap was less than 90 seconds. Madouas cracked at 40KM to go, leaving just the DSM-Firmenich duo to try and hold off the peloton, now led by Visma-Lease a Bike. Bardet and van den Broek crested the final climb of San Marino with 26KM to go with 1 minute 40 seconds as EF-Education EasyPost were chasing frantically behind. Lidl-Trek and Visma-Lease a Bike added firepower to the chase and had the gap down to 1 minute with 11.5KM to go. The pair only had 15 seconds at 2KM to go and were really laboring as the peloton were getting into full lead out mode. Van den Broek led through 1KM until 200M and their gap was going to be enough to take the win. Bardet edged out, had a word with van den Broek and they saluted the roaring crowd to take 1-2 for DSM-Firmenich and the Yellow Jersey. Wout van Aert of Visma-Lease a Bike led the bunch in 50M behind to take third place. Bardet will take the Yellow Jersey for the first time in his career, in what is his final Tour de France.