Tour de France stage 1 highlights - Video

After the early crash the men's race resumes as different riders try to get away (Image credit: Matthew Moses/Moses Images)

As one would expect from cycling's biggest showcase, the first day of the 2016 Tour de France provided plenty of drama to start off three weeks of Grand Tour racing. Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) added a 27th Tour de France stage win to his career, sweeping past Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) in the finishing straight at Utah Beach and holding off Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) in the closing metres. Cavendish earned his first-ever maillot jaune for his efforts and now leads the race by four seconds over Kittel and six seconds over Sagan. Andre Greipel is fourth, 10 seconds back.

The day's other big story concerned favourite for the overall Alberto Contador, who hit the deck with 79km to go, landing on his right shoulder and tearing his jersey and shorts after the peloton took a tight right turn. Contador quickly remounted, got a bike change soon after and was paced back into the peloton by four Tinkoff teammates.

The Spaniard and most of the other general classification favourites were caught behind another crash in the final kilometre, but they were all given the same time as Cavendish and continue on to fight on another day. Check out today's highlights in the video above.