The nervousness and the rain in and around Nice caused an avalanche of falls during the first stage of the Tour de France.
Tony Martin presented himself as patron of the peloton and with an arm gesture made it clear that enough had been done.
The German veteran called for peace, but Astana thought otherwise. In one of the dangerous descents, the blue shirts continued, but their action soon returned like a boomerang.
Leader Miguel Angel Lopez started to slip and could not avoid a spectacular crash against a pole.
“Chapeau for the whole peloton”, said Luke Rowe (Ineos) on the statement at the finish in Nice.
“Or for the whole peloton except Astana. They continued and the result was that their leader was on the ground.”
“They have appointed themselves a bit. Almost every team has at least one rider who fell today.”
“Our team also had several crashes, but we survived the day.” Although that is relative with Ineos, because shadow leader Pavel Sivakov lost more than 13 minutes after a double slider.
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Michel Wuyts returned to Astana’s action in our Facebook Live.
“I don’t know if it was a deliberate coup by Astana.”
“Perhaps it was the intention of Fraile and some of his associates to be at the front to take that descent first.”
“Develop a little more speed to get a little more stretch in the peloton. That is also an option.”
“In retrospect, you can say it was stupid, because the road surface didn’t allow that.”
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