Tour de France: Philipsen wins first stage, Pogačar finishes safely

LILLE, France (AP) — Jasper Philipsen won the opening stage of the Tour de France in a sprint to the line and defending champion Tadej Pogačar finished safely on Saturday.

Pogačar is looking to win the showcase race for a fourth time on the back of great form this season.

Stage 1 took riders on 185 kilometers (115 miles) in and around the northern city of Lille.

Philipsen’s Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Mathieu van der Poel put him in a great position to pull clear in the last 100 meters and win by a clear margin for his 10th Tour stage win.

Philipsen gets to wear the cherished yellow jersey for the first time, for one day at least.

“I have dreamed of wearing the yellow jersey. I wore the green jersey (for best sprinter) two years ago and the yellow will feel incredible,” he said, praising the fans who came over from nearby Belgium. “In the last two kilometers there were a lot of spectators and that gave me goosebumps.”

Eritrean cyclist Biniam Girmay was second and Norwegian Søren Wærenskjold third.

Pogačar and two-time Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark were in the front group — finishing 18th and 20th, respectively — but did not contest the sprint. All finished in 3 hours, 53 minutes.

Double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel, who was third overall last year, narrowly avoided a crash after about 50 kilometers which unseated Italian rider Filippo Ganna. He continued but later abandoned, as did Swiss rider Stefan Bissegger, caught in a separate crash.

There was another crash when Frenchmen Benjamin Thomas and Mattéo Vercher contested bonus points for the best climber’s jersey. Thomas overtook Vercher at the line on the short cobblestoned ascent but lost control of his front wheel and swerved into him. They both fell but got up and continued.

But it was a bad start for record four-time Spanish Vuelta winner Primož Roglič — the 2020 Tour runner-up from Slovenia finished 49 seconds behind Pogačar and Vingegaard, as did Evenepoel.

Both were caught in a crosswind that split the peloton, and they could not catch the main pack of about 30 riders.

Sunday’s second stage is a slightly hilly 209-kilometer trek from Lauwin-Planque to Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France and should again favor sprinters.

This month’s race stays in France for the duration, with no stages abroad as in previous years. It ends on July 27 in Paris.

“My dream is to win the Tour again, I’m not here to fight for second place,” Vingegaard said. “We have a very strong team this year.”

His Visma–Lease a Bike team includes Giro d’Italia winner Simon Yates and former cyclo-cross world champion Wout van Aert, who has won stages on all three Grand Tours.

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