Romain Bardet and Frank van den Broek delivered the most unlikely one-two finishes for DSM-Firmenich PostNL on Stage 1 of the 2024 Tour de France as Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) battled sickness in extreme heat.
Bardet was allowed to take the win and the first yellow jersey on home soil, centimeters ahead of his team-mate, as a complacent peloton was left to rue a charge too late.
It appeared that Bardet and Van den Broek would be swallowed up as the pace ramped up behind, but indecision in the bunch allowed them to keep an important gap heading into the finale
The duo battled hard for 40km on the front of the race with the peloton bearing down behind, shaving away their advantage on the flat final 15km, led by EF Education-EasyPost for home hopeful and new Italian champion Alberto Bettiol and Lidl-Trek for Mads Pedersen.
The Dsm pair had just 22 seconds’ advantage with 3km to go and the peloton had them in their sights on the long flat highway into Rimini on the Adriatic Coast – but the pair held them off against all odds to claim a well-deserved one-two on the line.
Earlier, Bardet and van den Broek had bridged their way to the lone surviving escapees Valentin Madouas (Groupama FDJ) and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno X) and had blown them both out of the wheels by the time they hit the final climb of the day.
Visma-Lease a Bike wrestled control of the bunch away from EF Education-EasyPost and UAE Emirates through the final of the stage in a sign of confidence in the returning Vingegaard.
Bardet and Van den Broek took a gap of only 1:40 over the reduced bunch into the fast final descent and 15km gallop to the finish in Rimini, but the bunch threw a wrench in their plans.
EF Education-EasyPost, which had been on a mission all day to set up local hero and Italian champ Alberto Bettiol, led the charge along with Lidl-Trek and Visma-Lease a Bike.
The chase left it extremely close to catching Bardet and Van den Broek, whose brave two-up TT was terminated 1500m out.
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