Tour de France: Teunissen takes yellow jersey after sprint victory in Brussels

Mike Teunissen (Jumbo-Visma) was the shock winner on stage 1 of the Tour de France, taking the first yellow jersey of the race on the uphill finish in front of the Laeken Castle in Brussels. Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) finished second, just inches back, while Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) rounded out the podium.

The Dutchman, who won the ZLM Tour late last month, was a surprise winner on the stage, having been expected to help lead out for sprinter Dylan Groenewegen. The Dutch sprinter, along with the bulk of his lead-out, was caught up in a big crash inside the final two kilometres.

From there, Deceuninck-QuickStep took control at the front, but their sprinter Elia Viviani was caught way out of position in the final kilometre. Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb) launched the sprint 300 metres out, just as Viviani was moving up, before then Sagan burst past with Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida) alongside him.

Behind the duo, Ewan was forced to check his sprint just as he looked to move up the middle to take the win, but it was Teunissen on the outside who finished the fastest. He sped past in the closing metres and threw his bike just far enough to seal an unlikely victory.

"I cannot believe it," Teunissen said after the stage. "We were working for weeks, for months to bring Dylan [Groenewegen] here to the win and yellow jersey, and then with 1.5km to go everything disappears because he goes down in a crash.

"Then I thought I'm still here, still fresh so we can try it. I saw everyone dying in the last metres – even Sagan I was catching up on. I just took him on the line and, like I said, it's beyond imagining. It's unbelievable."

At first, the 26-year-old was unaware that his leader had hit the deck but held position just in case. That presence of mind, along with some assistance from star teammate Wout Van Aert, kept him in position to challenge for the win.

"I couldn't clearly see if [Groenewegen] crashed or not so I just stayed in position and then I heard that he went down. Like I said, I felt good because we were in a good position. Then I thought I'll go for it. I still had Wout [Van Aert] with me, he also could do something, and it was just enough.

"It was a really strange day because our big goal disappears at 1.5km. But I hope Dylan can still smile a little bit if I take this with me to the room I think it'll take me some days more to imagine it because you can dream about it – the possibility to win a stage – but now it's working out pretty nice, I would say."

Earlier in the stage, Greg Van Avermaet (CCC Team) was part of the early breakaway, leading the way up the cobbled Muur van Geraardsbergen to take the lead of the mountain classification and wear the polka dot jersey on stage 2. Ewan is in the white young rider's jersey, while Sagan will inherit green from Teunissen.

How it unfolded

A brush with royalty for the peloton ahead of stage 1 of the 2019 Tour de France.

The Brussels Grand Départ was planned to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Eddy Merckx's first Tour de France victory, and, fittingly, it was the Cannibal who flagged the 176 starters away from outside the Palais Royal. During the neutralised section, meanwhile, the riders wheeled to a halt at the Grand-Place out of deference to King Philippe of Belgium, before the race began in earnest shortly afterwards.

As soon as the peloton hit kilometre zero, the day's early break forged clear, with Olympic champion and local favourite Greg Van Avermaet (CCC) slipping away in the company of Natnael Berhane (Cofidis), Mads Würtz Schmidt (Katusha) and Xandro Meurisse (Wanty-Groupe Gobert). The bunch was content to allow the quartet their freedom, and after 20km, they had an advantage of 3:25.

That gap had dropped slightly by the time they reached Geraardsbergen and the first classified climb of the 2019 Tour. The hallowed Muur – or the Mur de Grammont, per ASO's nomenclature – was designated as a category 3 ascent, meaning that the first rider to the top was guaranteed to take the first polka-dot jersey of the race. Van Avermaet has yet to win the Tour of Flanders, but the Belgian will always have this memory of the Muur, as he beat Meurisse to the top.

In a mirror of the old Ronde finish, the race proceeded to take in the Bosberg. Meurisse led over the top of the category 4 climb, while Van Avermaet, content with his early spoils, sat up and awaited the peloton. In the Belgian's absence, Berhane, Meurisse and Schmidt stuck gamely to their task, entering the final 100km with 2:22 over the peloton, but their advantage would begin to tumble on the approach to the stretch of cobbles at Thiméon.

The 1.9km sector of pavé immediately preceded the day's lone intermediate sprint at Les Bons Villers with 69km to go, and Bora-Hansgrohe were keen to set up Peter Sagan – and sow a little chaos, the opportunity presented itself. Powered by Daniel Oss, the bunch had closed to within 35 seconds of the break on reaching the cobbles. The escapees were caught before the sprint, while Bora's forcing proceeded to split the peloton into three distinct groups.

A mechanical mishap meant that Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was among those caught behind, while Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) and Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) found themselves in the third group on the road coming off the cobbles, some 1:20 off the head of the race. Though, the peloton reformed following the intermediate sprint, where Sagan claimed maximum points ahead of Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida), Van Avermaet and Michael Matthews (Sunweb).

Once the cobbles had been digested, the sense of urgency abated. Following the general regrouping, Tour neophyte Stéphane Rossetto (Cofidis) attacked alone, and with 40km to go, he had a maximum lead of almost two minutes, but Jumbo-Visma and Deceuninck-QuickStep were massing at the head of the bunch to set up the seemingly inevitable mass finish.

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