Tour de France: Gaviria wins opener and takes first yellow jersey

Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) won stage 1 of the Tour de France in Fontenay-le-Comte after a drama-filled finale to what seemed like it would be a standard sprint stage. The Colombian's first Tour victory came at the expense of Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) in second and Marcel Kittel (Katusha-Alpecin) in third.

The Colombian becomes the first rider to win his debut Tour stage since Sagan in 2012, also becoming only the second man from his country to wear the yellow jersey after Víctor Hugo Peña in 2003. He benefitted from a fantastically-organised lead-out from his Quick Step team, with four men on the front in the final kilometre executing their jobs perfectly.

Sagan and Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) lurked dangerously on his wheel, but there was nothing to be done about the Colombian, who was both the strongest man and led from the front - an unbeatable combination.

"It really is an amazing day for me," said Gaviria. "It's really good for our team and amazing for every rider in the team. We had a clear plan for today's stage - were ready for the sprint to succeed and thanks to god it has.

"It's a jersey that everyone wants to get and to get it on the first day is just amazing," he added. "I really don't have any words to describe what I've achieved today; I'm going to be so happy to wear it. I don't know if I'll keep it of course, but we'll try to keep it for as long as we can."

Formulaic for much of the day, the race came alive in the final 10km as multiple crashes and mechanical incidents first saw Richie Porte (BMC) and Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) lose contact with the peloton, then Chris Froome (Team Sky) who crashed into a grass verge after colliding with another rider. Seconds later Nairo Quintana (Movistar) punctured, meaning the GC race had already begun just 200km into the race.

In the end, Froome, Porte and Yates lost 51 seconds, while Quintana and his countryman Egan Bernal (Team Sky) came in 1:12 behind the peloton. Gaviria leads the overall classification by four seconds from Sagan, and also leads the points and young riders classification. Escapee Kévin Ledanois (Fortuneo-Samsic) leads the mountain classification.

How it happened

The opening stage of the 2018 Tour was a long one at 201km, and a largely flat jaunt starting out from Noirmoutier-en-l'Île, an island off the coast of western France situated in the Vendée department. The island was last visited for the 2005 prologue, won by David Zabriskie.

After heading over the Pont de Noirmoutier bridge to the mainland, the route hugged the coast for much of the day before heading inland for the finale. The day's only intermediate sprint came at 119.5km in the town of La Tranche-Sur-Mer, while the first climb of the race was the Côte de Vix a 700-metre hill averaging 4.2 per cent which came 173km into the stage.

A new addition to the Tour, the bonification sprint, came in Maillezais just 13.5km from the line. Included for the first nine stage of the race - minus the TTT - the sprint awards 3-2-1 second time bonuses, though no green jersey points. As ever, ten, six and four seconds were available at the finish in Fontenay-le-Comte. Late obstacles consisted of two roundabouts in the last 3km, plus a sharp right before the straight final kilometre

Three riders were on the attack as soon as race director Christian Prudhomme dropped the flag at the start of the stage. The men in question were three Frenchmen - Ledanois, Yoann Offredo (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Jérôme Cousin (Direct Energie), with Cousin's team keen to make an impression in their home region of the Vendée.

The trio quickly worked their way to a four-minute gap as they reached the mainland, with their fast pace offset by the more leisurely peloton, who were happy with the composition of the Tour's first breakaway.

EF-Drapac's Lawson Craddock didn't take long to suffer from his bib number - the unlucky 13. He went down in the feed zone, suffering cuts to his left eye before getting back on his bike and back to the peloton.

At the intermediate sprint, the break simply rolled through, but two minutes further back Gaviria beat out André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) and Arnaud Demaré (Groupama-FDJ) for fourth place.

With Dimension Data, Groupama-FDJ, LottoNL-Jumbo and Quick Step Floors all prominent at the front of the peloton, a sprint finish was all but assured, with the gap down to under a minute with 30km to run. Ledanois, the U23 world champion in 2015, took the first polka dot jersey of the race, beating his breakmates up the generously-titled 'climb' 28km from the line.

Before and after the climb, Yoann Offredo's multiple attacks showed his determination to go it alone, or at least extend Wanty's time on television. Having won the combativity award on stage two last year, he looked set to take another this time around.

After fighting for half the stage to stay in contact with the peloton, Craddock - who was also nursing an injured shoulder - dropped back as the pace upped in the final 20km. Cousin beat Offredo to the time bonification sprint, but the break was soon over, caught with 10km to go.

Soon afterwards, Demaré was in the wars, caught up in a crash towards the rear of the peloton and all but losing his chance at the stage victory. Young climbers Bernal and Pierre Latour (AG2R La Mondiale) were also delayed while Porte was missing from the peloton too.

With 5km to run, there was more drama as Bernal's team leader Froome hit the deck, tumbing onto the grass verge on the outside of a corner. Then came Quintana's troubles, with the Colombian dropping behind the Froome group, to give the end of a fairly straightforward stage a whole new meaning.

Groups featuring GC contenders were scattered along the route, but up front the Quick Step Floors train was untroubled, riding a perfect leadout to take the first stage victory of the Tour.

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