2010 Tour de France, Prologue to Stage 10#Stage 1
The first stage of the Tour de France 2010 on July 4, led over 223.5 kilometers from Rotterdam to Brussels, she was making it the second longest stage of the Tour de France. On the flat stage, there were three intermediate sprints. After the task Mathias Frank and Manuel Antonio Cardoso due to fall injuries 195 of the 198 registered participants were at the start.
Race course
After the drivers were a couple of miles driven by Rotterdam, they were on the Erasmus bridge for an opening ceremony of the 97th Tour - hosting with the mayor of the city, Ahmed Aboutaleb on. The real start was given at 12:22 clock.
Just two minutes later, a trio sat consisting of the Dutchman Lars Boom, the Spaniard Alan Pérez and Belgian Maarten Wijnants by the peloton from increased its distance intermittently over seven minutes and made the sprints with each other. Especially the teams of the favorites for the targeted mass sprint increased in the later course of the race the pace, so the projection then shrank again. They led the peloton zoom nine kilometers from the finish of the last outlier who had come on the previous 20 kilometers with the open-minded to them Moldovans Aleksandr Pliuşkin some fighting for the lead. Contrary to the fears of the wind made on the ride over the dams no problems.
After initially plunged the Australian Adam Hansen with a suspected broken collarbone and several drivers, including David Millar and Ivan Basso, were involved in an accident with a dog, it came in the final kilometers of Stage 1 to several mass falls: lost in the last corner Mark Cavendish, one of the co-favorites to win the day, his driving line and caused a crash, in which, among other things, the sprinter Óscar Freire came to case.
On the home straight, another massive crash, also in the overall leader Fabian Cancellara was involved occurred. The fight for the victory denied around 30 riders who had stopped to overthrow time before its center. 200 meters before the finish even Tyler Farrar was thrown to the ground. In the final sprint, the Italian Alessandro Petacchi prevailed ahead of Mark Renshaw. Since the crashes occurred within the last three kilometers, all participants were given the time of the Day winner Petacchi, so Cancellara defended the overall lead. Petacchi took over the green jersey.
Sprints
- 2nd intermediate sprint in Putte ( km 149.5 ) (7 m OP)
- Third intermediate sprint in Ekeren ( km 158.5 ) ( 0 m OP)
- Goal in Brussels ( km 223.5 ) (26 m O.D. )