There were mixed fortunes for the thousands of Belgian fans who poured over the border for the opening stage of the Tour de France on Saturday, July 5, as Jasper Philipsen won, but star rider Remco Evenepoel lost valuable time.
Philipsen took the yellow jersey in a frantic sprint finish at the northern city of Lille, while double Olympic champion Evenepoel was trapped in a second group and lost around 40 seconds. Race favourites Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard both finished safely in the lead pack on a day marred by a series of falls.
Africa’s sole rider Biniam Girmay, winner of three stages in 2024, was second on the day as Philipsen got ahead of him with 100m to go. Around 40 riders in the first group contested the sprint where one of the day’s many falls happened. Primoz Roglic of Red Bull and Team UAE’s Joao Almeida were also caught in the surprise split in blustery winds.
Fans packed the route in one of France’s more modest regions passing First World War memorials, red-brick houses and slagheaps from long-closed coal mines along the Belgian border.
Racing towards an intermediate sprint over cobbles, escapee Benjamin Thomas slid sideways and took out his sole rival Matteo Vercher in one spectacular fall and the pair were still bickering when the peloton shot past them.
Ganna first to pull out of Tour de France in blow for Ineos
Former time-trial world champion Filippo Ganna pulled out of the Tour de France on Saturday’s opening stage after struggling to shake off injuries from an early fall. The Italian Ineos rider would have been a contender on the lengthy stage 5 individual time-trial, having won the world title in 2020 and 2021.
Ganna, a former two-time time trial world champion, crashed on a bend with 132 kilometers to go. The Ineos rider took a long time to get going again, after changing bike and even shoes, to catch up with the peloton. But he was dropped on the Cassel climb and decided to call it a day some 65 km from the finish of the first stage in Lille.
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It’s a big blow for the Ineos team and for the 28-year-old Italian, who had enjoyed a fine classics campaign, including a second-place finish at Milan-Sanremo in March. Ganna was a candidate for victory in the stage 5 time trial in Caen, as was Stefan Bissegger.
The Swiss rider from the Decathlon-AG2R team also fell on Saturday, four kilometers after Ganna, in the company of Belgian Thibau Nys. Visibly stunned, Bissegger underwent a concussion protocol before getting back on his bike. But he then put his foot down on this very nervous first stage in the North.
Philipsen, in yellow, will lead the peloton out for Sunday’s second stage, a hilly 209km route to the beaches of Boulogne-sur-mer.
