Tour de France 2024: Romain Bardet wins Stage 1 in stunning DSM one-two as Mark Cavendish battles sickness
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Updated 01/07/2024 at 08:46 GMT
Mark Cavendish's quest for an outright record 35th stage win is already looking doubtful after he battled sickness in sweltering conditions on the opening stage of the 2024 Tour de France, which was won by Romain Bardet after a stunning finale. Cavendish and his Astana Qazaqstan team-mates rallied magnificently, but it remains to be seen if it was a one-off bad day or something more alarming.
Highlights: Bardet takes yellow jersey for France with Stage 1 win, as Cavendish beats time limit
Romain Bardet and Frank van den Broek delivered the most unlikely one-two finishes for Team dsm-firmenich PostNL on Stage 1 of the 2024 Tour de France as Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) battled sickness in extreme heat.
Frenchman Bardet got his 11th and final Tour off to the best possible start by snaring the first yellow jersey of his long career in the seaside city of Rimini in northern Italy. Helping him achieve such a feat was a Dutch rookie making his first appearance in the world’s biggest bike race.
Just days after announcing his forthcoming retirement in 2025, 33-year-old Bardet led home an astonishing one-two in a thrilling finale to one of the hardest opening stages in Tour history to defy the chasing peloton by just five seconds.
Bardet made his decisive move with an attack on the penultimate climb with just over 50 kilometres remaining of the hilly 206km stage from Florence. He joined forces with the impressive Van den Broek – 10 years his junior – up the road before the pair held off the chase in dramatic fashion.
Belgium’s Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) outkicked Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) for third place with Belgium’s Maxim Van Gils (Lotto Dstny) completing the top five.
Van Aert’s team-mate Jonas Vingegaard – the double defending champion from Denmark – made an encouraging return from injury by finishing safely in the main pack on his first race day since suffering multiple injuries in the Itzulia Basque Country race in early April.
But it was an opening day from hell for British sprinter Cavendish, who suffered mercilessly in the sweltering heat after being dropped on the first of seven challenging climbs in the hills of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna.
Cavendish rallied to finish the stage just under 40 minutes behind Bardet to keep alive his dream of an historic 35th stage win in his final appearance.
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'Distressed' Cavendish struggles with sickness in extreme heat on opening stage
Last to cross the line was another sprinter, Fabio Jakobsen, the Belgian team-mate of the day’s stand-out riders, Bardet and Van den Broek.
DSM will start the second stage to Bologna with Bardet in yellow and Van den Broek in green. The 23-year-old debutant is also the best young rider of the race and was awarded the combativity prize for his role in the day’s initial seven-man break, which formed after an active half an hour of racing as the race left Florence in temperatures of 37 degrees Celsius.
Van den Broek found himself up the road alongside Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious), Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Clement Champoussin (Arkea B&B Hotels), Sandy Dujardin and Matteo Vercher (both TotalEnergies).
After Uno-X Mobility duo Rasmus Tiller and Odd Christian Eiking failed to bridge over, another Uno-X rider in Jonas Abrahamsen managed to make the connection alongside Ryan Gibbon (Lidl-Trek).
With nine riders up the road, Cavendish’s dreams of making history this summer looked to be over when the 39-year-old sprinter – embarking on his 15th and final Tour – was distanced midway through the first of seven climbs.
Clearly suffering in the intense Tuscan heat, Cavendish was soon surrounded by four Astana team-mates as he took on liquids to quell his apparent dehydration. On at least two occasions, Cavendish vomited as he embarked on a protracted fight for survival to beat the time cut.
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'It was so hot' - Cavendish says heat caused Stage 1 struggles
Astana’s day went from bad to worse when their Italian debutant Michele Gazzoli was forced to abandon because of heat exhaustion – the 25-year-old becoming the first rider to withdraw from the 111th edition of the Tour.
TotalEnergies soon lost both their riders from the break – Vercher dropping like a stone on the first climb and Dujardin fading after winning the intermediate sprint. Abrahamsen and Izagirre, meanwhile, duked it out for the KOM points over the series of summits that came thick and fast. It was the Norwegian who would eventually prevail to secure the first polka dot jersey of the race.
The break's gap hovered around the four-minute mark as the peloton was gradually whittled down by a period of intense pacing by the UAE team-mates of Giro d’Italia winner and double Tour champion Pogacar around the midpoint of the race.
But once UAE took their collective foot off the gas, it was left to Visma-Lease a Bike and the EF Education-EasyPost team of Italian champion Alberto Bettiol to lead the chase.
On the penultimate climb, Bardet zipped clear with just over 50km remaining before Irish debutant Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) also tried his luck.
But while Bardet was able to quickly close the gap and join forces with his team-mate Van den Broek, Healy struggled to make any serious in-roads and was soon caught.
Izagirre, Mohoric and Gibbon were all distanced before Abrahamsen hit the wall once Bardet had joined the fray. Chasing the two extra points he needed to secure the polka dot jersey, Madouas dug deep to stick with the DSM duo but he faded before the summit.
The leaders extended their advantage on the final climb into the micro-state of San Marino before taking risks on the descent – with Van den Broek almost coming a cropper on a tight bend.
With their advantage down to just 50 seconds heading into the final 10km, it looked to be touch and go. But Bardet and Van den Broek buried themselves in the run into Rimini to win by just five seconds.
"It's amazing. I don't have any words for it,” said Van den Broek after a debut to remember. “We had the plan. I was in the break. Romain made the jump to the break and I could help him. It was good that he paced the last climb because I was on my limit. But I could do some pacing afterwards. There was a headwind and it was very hard. The last straight was so long, and I could see the peloton. It was just head down, and I pushed the last bit of energy from my legs.”
On the home straight it became clear that DSM had managed to do the impossible – it just remained to be seen which of their two riders brought home the bacon: the veteran on the first day of his final Tour, or the newcomer on first day of his maiden Grand Tour.
Bardet pulled rank and edged ahead – but the Frenchman made sure he pointed towards the young man who made his win possible as he crossed the line to take the yellow jersey previously missing from the otherwise illustrious palmares.
The Italian grand depart continues on Sunday with another tough stage that will do nothing to improve the morale of Cavendish. Six categorised climbs – including a double ascent of the infamous San Luca wall in Bologna – will no doubt create fireworks during the 199.2km stage from Cesenatico.
Bardet will have his work cut out defending his maillot jaune from the big race favourite Pogacar, who lurks 15 seconds down in the general classification and ready to pounce.
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