Jasper Philipsen emerges from the choas to win stage 1 of Tour de France in Lille
Philipsen took his 10th career Tour stage but the first to put him into yellow as he beat Biniam Girmay in a much-reduced bunch sprint after crosswinds split the peloton to pieces.
Overall hopefuls Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic were both caught out, conceding 39 seconds to the main favourites Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, with the Dane having done much to instigate the splits inside the last 20 kilometres of the 185km stage that started and finished in Lille.
Fewer than 40 riders made it into the front group but Philipsen's Alpecin-Deceuninck team had four of them and they made it count, putting together an ideal lead-out for Philipsen to comfortably beat Girmay and Soren Waerenshjold to the line.
"It's really amazing," the Belgian said. "My 10th victory is something I will never forget. The team performance was incredible. I think we were there all day. It was very nervous but we knew today could be our day and we have to be in the front and we were there in the split.
"The team did amazing and in the end we could just use our strength and finish it off...
"I have dreamt about (the yellow jersey). Already I had the green jersey from two years ago but to have the yellow jersey hanging somewhere in my house in the next years is going to be amazing."
Philipsen became the first pure sprinter to pull on yellow since Alexander Kristoff won the opening stage in Nice in 2020, but it was far from a straightforward bunch finish as strong crosswinds in northern France added to the stress of the opening day of the Tour, producing chaos.
Benjamin Thomas, the Olympic Madison champion, ended the day in the king of the mountains jersey but only after crashing into Matteo Vercher as they crossed the line battling for the point at the top of the cobbled climb of Mont Cassel.
Thomas had been part of an original five-man breakaway reeled in before the mid-point of the stage as teams fought for position.
Another rider to go down was former world time trial champion Filippo Ganna, and the Italian later abandoned the race, a huge blow for the Ineos Grenadiers.
In summing up the stage Geraint Thomas, riding his final Tour de France, said: "I should have stopped last year, to be honest. It was very stressful.
"It's a big, big shame to lose Pippo. I saw the crash and it didn't look too bad but he gave his head a bit of a knock, so there's a concussion call which is the right thing, but it's a big, big shame to lose him."
The yellow jersey will be expected to change shoulders on Sunday given the lumpy finish to 209km stage two from Lauwin-Planque to Boulogne-sur-Mer.
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