Sport

Tour de France week one: crashes, controversy and more

Sunday’s stage to Chambéry the best in recent years while big names have crashed out

The pack of riders in action during the ninth stage of the 104th edition of the Tour de France between Nantua and Chambery. Photo: Yoan Valat/EPA

William Fotheringham in Bergerac
Mon Jul 10 2017 - 20:39

1) Where did Sunday’s stage sit in the league table of epic days on the Tour?

Right up there near the top. In terms of the volume of events, of the sheer amount of stuff that went on and the stories that were thrown up, Sunday’s stage to Chambéry was one of the best in recent years. But it is probably topped by the stage to Les Arcs in 1996, run off in a rainstorm over the Cormet de Roselend, where Miguel Indurain’s reign came to an end, where Stéphane Heulot abandoned the yellow jersey in tears, where Chris Boardman and Laurent Jalabert cracked disastrously, and Lance Armstrong’s future manager Johan Bruyneel flew off the road on a hairpin and went into a ravine. Everyone has their favourites: the 1986 Tour was full of epic days, while further back you could point to the l’Alpe d’Huez stage in 1977, or Orcières-Merlette in 1971. Let’s just say Sunday is in good company.

2) Have there been more crashes than usual?

The crash question has been a perennial one for decades. There are a significant number of spectacular crashes on the Tour every year and, sadly, always a fair number of casualties. What is different this year is that the crashes have involved a bigger number of star riders than usual in prominent situations – Alejandro Valverde on day one, Mark Cavendish, John Degenkolb and Ben Swift on day four, Geraint Thomas four days out of the first nine, and finally Sunday’s demolition derby, which did for Thomas, Richie Porte and several others. There was also a spectacular mass chute on day two, captured by the British photographer Chris Auld. There have, inevitably, been questions about the wisdom of routing a stage over the narrow, twisting roads used on Sunday, but the Mont du Chat was used for the Dauphiné Libéré last month with no ill effects. The problem is, when it rains, wherever you are racing, the roads become dangerous, as we saw in Düsseldorf and en route to Liège.

3) Has Froome as good as won the Tour?

Not quite. He is well placed for his fourth victory, with Porte unfortunately out of the race (although as Froome said, he would rather the Australian was still here), Quintana slipping behind and Alberto Contador seemingly out of the reckoning, and only Fabio Aru, Romain Bardet and Rigoberto Urán within a minute. Also, his team-mates Mikel Landa, Mikel Nieve and Sergio Henao are well placed in ninth, 14th and 15th overall respectively. It is rare for a Tour de France leader to enjoy such support in depth and then to go on to lose the race, so all the cards are currently stacked on Froome's side, as they have been since Planche des Belles Filles. There are possible flies in the ointment, however: there is a lot of road still to be covered and many, many opportunities for things to go wrong for the race leader and his team. Astana have two strong riders in the first five in Aru and Jacob Fuglsang, who may prove tough for the race leader and his support riders to neutralise.

4) Were the leaders right to make Aru wait when Froome had his mechanical on Sunday?

This is a matter of opinion. It could be argued that the race was not completely “on”, in other words the favourites had not yet begun to make their moves and they were still marking each other, except that Froome had his team working on the front to reduce the lead group in number, which to me looks suspiciously like racing. No one waited for Alberto Contador when he crashed twice earlier on Sunday’s stage, both on occasions when the race was not “on”. There is also the nebulous notion of a tradition of respect for the yellow jersey. In truth, there are plenty of occasions in Tour history when the yellow jersey has been attacked at moments which might be seen as inappropriate, as Contador did in 2010 with Andy Schleck. Given that this is a competitive sports event, the riders have every right to use the opportunities that appear on the road; if they know that they will be publicly slated for it for an alleged breach of ethics they have the right to decide whether to live with that or not.

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5) What interest is there in the other jerseys besides yellow?

A good deal. Warren Barguil has taken a commanding lead in the mountains jersey over Primoz Roglic and Simon Yates gained valuable ground in the under-25 standings ahead of Louis Meintjes and Pierre Latour. The green jersey contest has an interesting look after Australia’s Michael Matthews snaffled full points in the intermediate sprint on Sunday to move 52 points behind Marcel Kittel. The chances are – unless they decide to focus all their attention on his team-mate Barguil – the two-man Sunweb team will attempt to send Matthews up the road whenever it is hilly to repeat his tactic of Sunday and gain more points. Whether that will be enough to overhaul Kittel, clearly the strongest flat road sprinter in the race, is the question that will give this contest legs.

(Guardian service)