Romain Bardet won a thrilling Stage 1 of the Tour de France in Rimini to take the yellow jersey as UAE Team Emirates rider Tadej Pocacar finished in fourth place.
Sir Mark Cavendish’s pursuit of a record-breaking 35th stage victory was put into question by an apparent illness.
Bardet attacked out of the peloton with 50 kilometres left of the 206km stage from Florence and, aided by his teammate and Tour debutant Frank van den Broek out of the breakaway, did just enough to hold off the approaching pack by a matter of metres on the Adriatic seafront.
But as Bardet, 33, was celebrating his first stage win since 2017, Cavendish and several of his Astana-Qazaqstan teammates were still negotiating the final climb up to San Marino, still with the long descent to the coast to go, more than half an hour behind the main pack.
Cavendish had been dropped on the opening climb, and appeared to be vomiting as he struggled in intense heat, with his teammates pouring bottles of water over him.
As the race had rolled out of Florence, close to where Cavendish owns a home, the Manxman had enthusiastically waved to the crowds but it soon turned into a day of crisis as he faced a fight to finish the stage, and to do so within the time cut.
Cavendish, 39, postponed his planned retirement after crashing out of last year’s Tour, returning to take one more shot at claiming the Tour stage win record outright, having matched Eddy Merckx in 2021.
He will have had Monday’s Stage 3 into Turin circled as the first of the “five or six” sprint opportunities he sees in this year’s Tour but, even if it was only a temporary bug or the effects of the heat, this day may take some time to recover from.
The first ever Italian Grand Depart of the race threw up an opening stage with an unprecedented amount of climbing – more than 3,600 metres – and searing heat to boot on a day that put many riders to the sword.
Seven riders went up the road early on but were never given too much rope by a peloton full of riders with an eye on the yellow jersey.
With the gap to the front down to around two minutes, Bardet launched a move out of the peloton still with three of the categorised climbs to be crested, and soon got on to the wheel of dsm-firmenich PostNL teammate Van den Broek who helped him move clear.
Irishman Ben Healy tried a move of his own to bridge across but fell back on the rise up to San Marino, with Mads Pedersen’s Lidl-Trek team and Wout Van Aert’s Visma-Lease A Bike taking over to lead the chase.
The gap was down to just 10 seconds as the front pair went under the flamme rouge, and it proved just enough to deliver a French winner on day one of the Tour.
All the main contenders – Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic – were in the main group along with the likes of Geraint Thomas and Tom Pidcock, coming in five seconds behind.
Afterwards, Bardet said: “I had to back myself, I had to hope that this would go well. I didn’t know the course particularly well but Frank [van den Broek] was really strong out in front and I felt that I had nothing to lose essentially.
“Because Frank was so strong, we were able to work together and go for it and he really deserves this win as much as me. I don’t really have the words, it’s sport.
“It’s certainly one of the goals I set for my career [the yellow jersey]. I’ve been really close before. It’s been within touching distance but I’ve never been able to do it.
“Today I just wasn't sure that it was going to be able to happen. But I had a great teammate with me. And I think when I reflect on this victory, I will look back and remember just how special it was.”
