Tour de France 2024: Bardet wins brutal first stage as Cavendish struggles in heat – live | Tour de France 2024

Here’s the moment Barde crossed the line:

As he crossed the line Bardet pointed to his team-mate to take credit for the win, Van Aert finished third on the stage – looking to be in form.

The sprinters could not make an impact and the DSM pair crossed the 150m ahead of the pack. What a performance from Van Den Broek, he made the big turns in the last five kilometers.

1 km to the end: DSM have it!

2 km left: The gap is now ten seconds, DSM still leading. Amazing race!

3 km to go: The peloton has the leaders in its sights, the gap reduced to less than 20 seconds.

4 km to go: DSM racers are encouraged on the team radio, the gap isn’t closing as fast now. Maybe that could happen for Barde? Lidl-Trek is leading the way in trying to reduce this divide.

7 km to go: DSM’s efforts look set to fail, the gap now just 36 seconds. The other favorites are Pedersen, Ciccone, Bettiol, Van Aert and Pidcock.

A quick explanation of the cutoff rules:

Time varies by stage. It depends on the difficulty of the stage and the average speed of the winner. The difficulty of each stage is set on levels of one to six, known as a “coefficient”. Flat stages get a level one factor and it increases depending on the difficulty. The average speed of the winner is combined with the stage coefficient to determine a percentage by which the break from the leaders is calculated.

Stage one is rated as a tier three odds, so with an average speed over 44km/h it looks like the cutoff will be 20% of the winner’s finish time.

16 km left: Quick update on Cavendish, his Astana group is over 30 minutes behind, but that will probably be OK in terms of the cutoff. Fabio Jacobsen, another sprint favorite with DSM, is with him.

17 km left: Wout van Aert is still in the peloton, we’ll find out how good his legs are if it all comes together.

19 km left: Bardet and Van Den Broek continue to push at the front, but the gap to the peloton is down to 1 minute 20 seconds.

27 km left: Ineos and Lidl-Trek are now at the front of the peloton in an attempt to bring back the DSM pair, with about half a kilometer to the summit, then equal to the descent to Rimini. Barde still has a lead of 1 minute 50 seconds, he wants that first yellow jersey – remarkably given his career he has never worn it.

28 km left: Bettiol, Mads Pedersen and Pidcock may all be thinking of a stage win now if the peloton can pull off the DSM riders.

31 km left: Healy has given up on Madouas, but has yet to make much of the DSM pair’s leadership. The question now is how much time can Barde and Van Den Broek put into the peloton? It is currently running about two minutes with 4 kilometers to the last peak.

32 km left: Healy has now overtaken the Madouas, but they are more than a minute behind the DSM riders.

38 km left: Healy is on the descent and is a minute behind Bardet, the peloton 1min 45s further back.

40 km left: Will the DSM riders let Maduas take the latest mountain points in exchange for a little help? No, Groupama-FDJ is blown up and dropped. Then Abrahamsen will probably be on points.

41 km left: Abrahamsen dropped out of the lead group as Bardet and DSM teammate Van Den Broek tackled Madouas behind. Ireland’s Ben Healy of EF has pulled away from the peloton, can he make a play and move into the leaders who are 1min 06sec apart. forward?

49 km left: Bardet latched onto Van Den Broek and the DSM-Firmenich PostNL pair set off in pursuit of Abrahamsen and Madouas at the front. Uno-X Mobility rider Abrahamsen can’t take maximum mountain points this time, but he’s probably in the polkadot jersey with these latest additions.

50 km left: Romain Bardet is attacking the front of the peloton and no one is going with him now, he already has 40 seconds and a teammate in front of him to help.

Eric Farquharson makes a good point about the Olympics:

The Olympic peloton is almost half the size of the Tour de France due to IOC team size restrictions. I would argue that a stage win or Tour podium places are far more influential to future contracts and therefore salary expectations than an Olympic medal.

That’s what I had earlier when I referred to the race as a bit of nonsense. Small teams and parkours designed around local landmarks can lead to competitions where winners can come from anywhere, so not exactly consistent with who is having a good season.

55 km left: The riders have flown the descent from Cote de Barbotto and are moving towards Cote de San Leo. Breakaway to five riders without Izagirre leads the peloton by 2 minutes and 18 seconds.

71 km left: We’re in pirate country and someone has painted the Italian legend’s name all over the climb, perhaps inspired, and with Izaguirre gone, Abrahamsen breaks out and takes maximum mountain points from Maduas and Van Den Broek.

William Fotheringham’s latest read on Marco Pantani is well worth your time:

72 km left: Izagirre was coming off the back of the lead group, he had looked strong for most of the day but perhaps those earlier efforts had undermined the legs. With the peloton now just 2min 40sec behind the break, it could see the GC teams very soon.

More on the Olympic question from Martin O’Donovan-Wright:

In the professional peleton, for the vast majority of riders, an Olympic medal would surely count below not only success Tour de France (podium or stage wins) but also the Giro and certainly all the monuments. The sport is delightfully self-contained, always with a nod to the history of these famous races.

That’s how I would see it, and I imagine most hardcore cycling fans would feel the same way. Although track cycling is of course very different.

74 km left: The peloton closed the gap to the main group to 3 minutes 44 seconds. UAE, Pogachar’s team, took over the front group after a big change from EF-Education Easypost to cut that time to the front of the race.

Klaus Lund asks a good question:

What happens to the big names like Thaddeus Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard. Last in his first race since his very bad accident and Pogachar looking to win after two years of disappointment. How are they performing today so far?

We have an update on Vingegaard via the team radio which suggests he was fine on the first second category climb of the stage – good news on his return. Very little to say about Pogacar so far, he is well placed in the peloton. Both had full squads around them in the main group.

Nicolas De Smet has an answer to the Olympics question:

The Olympics are great, but I think a Tour de France a win (prestige stage or general classification) overrides this.

Who remembers Olympic gold? Who remembers the Tour de France?

Also, quite a few riders qualify for the Olympics.

88 km left: Breakaway have a five-minute gap as they head up the Cote de Barbotto, the stage’s next second-category climb. EF are at the front of the peloton, but the gap is stable.

If someone have thoughts on Andrew’s question or anything else please do get in touch.

Great question from Andrew Benton via email:

Do you think racers will take fewer risks this year? I imagine quite a number will be representing their countries at the Olympics and I wouldn’t want to risk missing out through injury, whatever the team commands.

A look at the list of medalists for the road race, going back to Sydney, is quite confusing – Jan Ulrich, Paolo Bettini, Samuel Sanchez, Alexander Vinokurov, Greg Van Avermaet and Richard Carapaz – perhaps an illustration of the varied courses set by the Olympic hosts. I’ve never been convinced that it’s such a big draw for riders, just because it’s a bit silly. I guess the big question for me is who leads the Slovenian team?