Tour de France 2023: Adam Yates pips twin Simon to yellow jersey ...
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Stage one report: Bilbao to BilbaoAdam Yates took the stage win and the race leader’s yellow jersey that went with it as he beat his twin brother Simon by four seconds in Bilbao.
“I don’t even know what to say,” he gaspos, struggling for breath. “I attacked on the descent after saetting the climb up for Tadej and my brother came across to work with me. At first I didn’t know if I should work with him so I asked on the radio and they said ‘Go for it!’. I’m speechless.”
On duking the finish out with his twin brother: “I speak to him every day and we’re rally close, so to share this experience is really nice. I wish he would pull a little bit easier because he almost dropped me at one moment. I’m super happy! I want to keep my feet on the ground because we’re here for Tadej and he’s the boss. Over the next few weeks, I’m sure he’s going to show a lot.”
It's a Yates one-two on stage one ...Adam Yates leads his twin brother Simon home, winning an eventful stage one in 4hr 22min 49sec. He’ll take the yellow jersey. They attacked just after the final climb passing Pogacar and Vingegaard just before the descent began. It’s a big day for the Yates family – Adam takes his first ever stage win and the Maillot Jaune that happens to go with it.
Adam Yates wins Stage One800m to go: Simon Yates (Jayco Alula) leads his brother Adam (UAE) but is overtaken. Adam Yates pulls clear on the ramp towards the finish line. His brother Simon follows him home. Tadej Pogacar finishes third. It’s a one-two for the Yates brothers and a one-three for Team UAE.
2km to go: Adam and Simon Yates are sharing the work as they head towards the final ramp that leads to the finish. There’s no time for any cat-and-mouse tomfoolery.
3km to go: Brothers Adam and Simon Yates have opened a lead of 16 seconds over the Vingegaard group. Julian Alaphilippe is way back and won’t be winning today.
8km to go: Pogacar and Vingegaard go over the top of the Col du Pike with only Cofidis rider Victor Lafay for company and the front of the race looks to have been blown to smithereens for now at least. More and more riders will catch them on the downhill, you’d presume.
10km to go: Tadej Pogacar tries to attack on the climb but Jonas Vingegaard is glued to his wheel. Not literally, of course – he’s not a Just Stop Oil protestor.
11km to go: Back at the front of the race, all the big guns are in good positions as they approach today’s final climb, the Category 3 Cote de Pike. It’s two kilometres in length and 212 metres high with a gradient of 10 per cent. Dylan van Baarl is making the pace.
15km to go: Carapaz is back on his bike but his face is a mask of pain and he’s struggling to even turn his pedals. His left knee looks to have taken a mighty whack and he’s already over five minutes behind the leaders. Enric Mas has abandoned and become the first man to leave this year’s race.
16km to go: I haven’t seen the crash which did for Mas and Carapaz but it looks like the former’s race is definitely over. His Movistar team are making no apparent effort to get their star rider back on his bike. That’s so unlucky for them but such are the perils of bike racing.
Carapaz reacts after taking a fall and sustaining an injury. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/ReutersMas receives medical attention after taking a fall. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters19km to go: Crash!!! Enric Mas (Movistar) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education) are both standing at the side of the road following a crash and neither look in particularly good shape. The main GC contenders for both their teams, their Tour looks over on day one, even if they are able to continue. Carapaz is given a spare bike and pedals away but his knee looks badly damaged; he’s going to lose a lot of time. Enric Mas is still standing at the side of the road and looks dazedc and ashen-faced. He might have a concussion.
27km to go: Neilsen Powless sprints off the front of the bunch, is first over the top and takes five King of the Mountain points.
27km to go: Jumbo Visma take over at the front of the bunch as they continue their climb, with Dylan van Baarle putting in the hard yards. They’ve a kilometre to go to the summit of Cote De Vivero. Julian Alaphilippe and Mathieu van der Poel, who will each fancy their chances of winning today’s stage, have both seen quite a few of their teammates get dropped.
Tour de France Unchained: “If you enjoyed TdF Unchained, the next step is The Least Expected Day, also available on Netflix,” writes Tim Hoult. “Its first season follows the Movistar team through a really eventful 2019 season that saw infighting, a Grand Tour win, outright dissent with team orders and frequent behind the scenes footage on the bus and in team hotels. Great fun, although I was frequently bewildered at exactly why Movistar have so many leaders in any given race!” Thanks for the recommendation and consider it on my list.
30km to go: The peloton is stung out as the riders tackle the steep gradient of the penultimate climb and plenty more riders are being dropped. Some can’t cope with the high speed and others are keeping their energy in reserve for more important battles ahead. Mikkel Bjerg (UAE) is towing the leaders along.
32km to go: Matteo Trentin brings Tadej Pogacar to the front of the bunch, where he is joined by Julian Alaphilipe, who’s spent most of the day so far loitering at the back of the bunch.
35km to go: Next up is the Cat2 Côte de Vivero, which is 4.2 kilometres in length and has an altitude of 361 metres. As they approach the climb, the bunch is travelling at 33.1km per hour.
Tour de France Unchained: “I enjoyed seeing the more candid footage, but I wasn’t keen on the way that narratives and stories had to be forced on to everything, especially when they were less than accurate,” writes Nick Honeywell. “The Mark Cavendish erasure in the very first episode rather rubbed me up the wrong way; I understand a French-made show would’ve liked to feature Alaphilippe, but to suggest that he (a non-sprinter) was challenging Jakobsen (a sprinter) for a place in the team was risible.”
40km to go: The peloton goes over the Col De Morga and are on a descent that looks punchy. When the road levels out, all the big guns will want to be in the first 20 places of the bunch in a bid to keep themselves out of trouble and in contention at the business end of the stage.
41km to go: Mark Cavendish is one of six or seven riders to have been dropped at the beginning of the climb. He won’t be breaking Eddie Merckx’s record for stage wins today but it was never on the cards given that today’s stage was never going to suit the out-and-out sprinters.
44km to go: The road widens and riders from UAE, EF Education-Easypost and Groupama-FDJ can be seen the front with the bunch two kilometres from the top of the Col De Morga.
47km to go: Riding as one, the bunch is on its way up the Cat4 Col De Morga, a mere speed-bump that’s just 307m high. The riders of Jumbo Visma, Movistar and Bora Hangrohe are all at the front of the bunch.
51km to go: The gap is into 15 seconds and the peloton can see the five breakaway riders ahead of them up the road. Pascal Eenkhorn (Lotto-Dstny), Lilian Calméjane (Intermarché), Simon Guglielmi (Arkea), Jonas Gregaard (Uno-X) and Valentin Ferron (TotalEnergies) we salute you but your moment in the spotlight is over with 50 kilometres to go and three categorised climbs to go in today’s stage.
54km to go: Having passed through it when they contested the intermediate sprint, the breakaway is on its way back though the town of Guernica, where the streets are lined with cheering crowds who seem to be having a great day. They love their cycling in that particular neck of the woods.
55km to go: The five men in the breakaway stretch the elastic again, their lead going back out to 1min 20sec.
An email: “I too enjoyed TDF: Unchained as the background of the race, the thoughts of the riders and how the teams prepare added something in addition to ‘just’ who won what and how,” writes Neil Mackie.
“It did have some Drive to Survive issues in terms of wrong stage footage, and the post-production ‘commentary’ was jarring, but I doubt most viewers will have picked up on that. Oh, and original audio with subtitles is the way to go, with some of my rudimentary French helping out.
“For other cycling news, downhill mountain biking phenom Jackson Goldstone has just won his first elite level world cup race in Val di Sole, Italy (his main competition from the Junior ranks, Jordan Williams, happened to win the first elite race of the season). The link to the TDF is that top level cyclists are getting younger and younger, like Alpecin’s Puck Pieterse winning in women’s elite cross country.”
64km to go: To be clear, he didn’t actually pedal backwards down the course in reverse, he turned around first and went the wrong way down the course.
64km to go: Alexy Lutsenko (Astana) stops to get a new wheel and his teammate Yevgeniy Fedorov stops, turns and cycles about 10 yards back down the road to wait for him and help pace him back to the bunch.
Going backwards down the course is an illegal move, and in this instance one that’s been captured by the TV cameras, as Eurosport’s Australian co-commentator Robbie McEwan points out. Yevgeniy may get a ticking-off from the race commisioners but is unlikely to face any other sanction. The gap is at 27 seconds.
Tour de France Unchained: “I watched the first five episodes and even got my daughter interested in the programme,” writes Patrick Foyle. “It had to be well done for her to be engaged in cycling. Pidcock’s descending was outrageous!”
“My favourite moment was the look of utter disbelief from Charly Wegelius in the EF Education team car watching Tom Pidcock’s descent from the Galibier,” writes Peter Craig.
69km to go: The gap is coming down again as the big GC hitters jockey for position at the front of the bunch with the race entering some difficult technical sections with more narrow roads to negotiate ahead of a descent.
An email: “They breakaway is dead in the water because the peloton has not let them get away,” writes Jeremy Boyce. “There’s been no ‘Give them six minutes now, we’ll have them later’. As I said earlier, the Jumbos and UAEs will be wanting to manage this 21 day race from start to finish. And possibly get their markers down early, as you suggested.”
73km to go: Jonas Gingaard (Uno-X) and Simon Guglielmi (Arkea) had attacked the breakaway but are about to be rejoined by their three fellow escapees. The gap is back out to 30 seconds and there are three categorised climbs remaining in the stage.
75km to go: The breakaway looks unsurpisingly dead in the water, albeit a little earlier than expected. The gap is down to 18 seconds.
77km to go: It’s been a quiet day today so far, with most of the teams keeping their powder dry ahead of what now look like inevitable fireworks at the busimness end of this stage. Should Tadej Pogacar or Jonas Vingegaard win today, there’s a small chance they could become the first rider, since the Belgian Romain Maes 1935, to wear the yellow jersey from pillar to post on the Tour.
81km to go: Uno-X rider Torstein Træen has had a crash, changed his bike, been checked by the doctor and is back on his way again, pedalling along a few hundred yards behind the peloton with a sizeable rip visible on the back of his jersey. He had to wait a while for the team car to bring him a spare bike, possibly because his teammate Jonas Gregaard is in the breakaway.
An email: “I am happy every year to contribute $25 USD to the Guardian in support of their Tour de France coverage,” writes Martin Yeager from Houston (near the Galveston Bay). “I enjoy the 21 days of both the silly and the serious live feed comments. It is pretty on TV but I enjoy the Guardian’s and its readers’ coverage.”
86km to go: Pascal Eenkhorn (Lotto-Dstny), Lilian Calméjane (Intermarché), Simon Guglielmi (Arkea), Jonas Gregaard (Uno-X) and Valentin Ferron (TotalEnergies) continue to lead but are just over a minute clear of a bunch that is keeping them on a very, very tight leash. Since escaping, they’ve only got their lead over two minutes on one occasion and even then only for a few seconds.
1. Pascal Eenkhorn (20 pts)2. Simon Guglielmi (17)3. Valentin Ferron (15)4. Lilian Calmejane (13)5. Jonas Gregaard (11)At 1’10’’:6. Mads Pedersen (10)7. Peter Sagan (9)8. Jasper Philipsen (8)9. Mark Cavendish (7)10. Bryan Coquard (6)11. Dylan Groenewegen (5)12. Jordi Meeus (4)13. Biniam Girmay (3)14. Jasper Stuyven 92)15. Alexis Renard (1)
Today’s five-man breakaway. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty ImagesChristian Prudhomme: A word on today’s stage from the Tour de France director. "The Basque Country doesn’t lack options when it comes to offering opportunities to the puncheurs,” he says. “With 3,300 metres of vertical gain and a double springboard where gaps can be created in the final 30 kilometres in the shape of the Vivero and Pike climbs, discussion about the identity of the first Yellow Jersey holder will focus on attackers with real pedigree, those capable of taking allying their instinct to their power.”
Intermediate sprint: Pascal Eenkhorn (Lotto-Dstny) wins the intermediate sprint in Guernica and takes 20 points.
Tour de France Unchained: In preparation for this year’s Tour, I watched the eight-part behind the scenes documentary about last year’s Tour de France that is currently available on Netflix. I found it thoroughly enjoyable; a bit like Drive To Survive but with far fewer thoroughly unpleasant people. Anyone else seen it? Meanwhile back at this year’s race, the gap is at 1min 28sec with exactly 100 kilometres of stage one remaining.
More top bays: “Can I add Barafundle Bay in Pembrokeshire to the list of great bays?” asks Alan Pedigrew. “It’s stunningly beautiful plus it’s a great word to say!”
“You’ve got to include Wineglass Bay in Tasmania,” writes Richard Kitson. “Beautiful location but the name is a winner on its own!”
Wineglass Bay in Tasmania. Photograph: Nigel Killeen/Getty ImagesAn email: “I’m guessing you haven’t been to Sandwood Bay in North West Scotland?” asks Peter Craig. “If Alpecin and Jumbo Visma are controlling the break, my money would be on Van Der Poel or Van Aert rather than Alaphilippe.”
An email: Jeremy Boyce writes in response to Kurt Perleberg’s decidedly tongue-in-cheekl query about the lack of American Tour de France winners since Greg Lemond in 1990.
“Of course another American did ‘win’ the Tour, on numerous occasions, except he was doing and dealing dope and was rightly stripped of his titles,” he writes. “Why don’t they win more often? Maybe road biking just isn’t interesting enough for them. They have plenty of their own sports to watch where a match takes half a day day, but with a Grand Tour it takes 21 days to get a result and we all know how they love to have a result at the end of each match, hence their obsession with shoot-outs.
“The Tour has a daily winner, no shoot out needed, but it builds the overall suspense over 3 weeks, more like watching a whole season of Dallas than an episode of The X Files.”
A good email, Jeremy, although I’m not sure Floyd Landis will appreciate being further erased from the history books he has been erased from once already.
Won’t somebody think of Floyd? Photograph: Franck Robichon/EPA113km to go: With faces set in “grimace mode” the five riders in the breakaway make their way up a stiff Category Three climb, the second of the day, with two King of the Mountains points on offer at the top. Gregaard attacks but is reined in after going too early. Pascal Eenkhorn (Lotto-Dstny) is first over the top and is now in the virtual polka-dot jersey by dint of his second place finish on the first climb.
An email: “I’d be quite surprised if, as a professional cyclist, you’d be thrilledabout winning an over-30’s, or heaven forbid, over-35’s competition,” writes David Hindle. “Strangely though, in the amateur, open road race world, at least here in Germany, it’s all done by age group. When you reach Masters III, or worse still IV, it’s a mixed bag. The constant reminder of how old and past it you are, mixed with the secret desire to be able to claim bragging rights for being the fastest 55-year-old in the race.”
121km to go: The riders continue to barrel along at an avergae speed of 40.2km per hour and the gap is 1min 34sec. AG2R Citreon rider Benoit Cosnefroy has dropped out of the bunch on a descent with a mechanical and has received a replacement bike.
A Basque Country flag decorates a bicycle during the first stage. Photograph: Daniel Cole/APAn email: “No American has won the Tour De France since Greg Lemond in 1990,” writes Kurt Perleberg. “Why has it been so long?”
