Contador crashes at Tour de France

Mark Cavendish has won stage one of the Tour de France, outlasting Peter Sagan and Marcel Kittel for Tour win No27, and for the first time, the yellow jersey.

Mark Cavendish surged to victory in a crash-marred opening stage at the Tour de France on Saturday. Belgian legend Eddy Merckx remains out in front on 34 victories.

Lotto-Soudal rider Henderson’s just 13 seconds behind British stage victor Mark Cavendish, who completed cycling’s prestigious set of distinctive jerseys as he took the overall leader’s yellow jersey.

Cavendish, now riding for Team Dimension Data, finished ahead of Marcel Kittel and last year’s green jersey victor Peter Sagan.

There was a huge crash taking out a large portion of the chasing pack but the trio pushed on, with the Dimension Data rider holding on for the watershed win ahead of Kittel and Sagan, with Andre Greipel claiming fourth. There’s no greater icon in cycling than the yellow jersey and it will get recognition for our sponsors and the Qhubeka charity.

Normandy native Anthony Delaplace (Fortuneo-Vital Concept) and Alex Howes (Cannondale-Drapac) moved to join them, but it was Voss who went clear alone to hoover up the day’s King of the Mountains points on the two early climbs and secure the first polka dot jersey of the race.

But in doing so, he also won something he’s never actually won before: the yellow jersey as the overall leader of the Tour de France.

Tomorrow’s stage comprises of a hilly 182km route from Saint-Lô to Cherbourg-Octeville. “I have a job to do which is winning races for Dimension Data”, Manxman Cavendish said.

He paid tribute to the soldiers who had sacrificed their lives, not only in the D-Day landings on Utah Beach, but all service personnel who had perished to protect “a modern, free world”.

Spaniard Alberto Contador, a two-time Tour victor and one of the favourites, crashed around 80 kilometers before the finish, sustaining bruising to his shoulder, elbow and groin.

He said: “There was a crash in a corner just after a bit of a crosswind section, and there was a lot of stress because Contador and one of our boys came down in the group”.

Contador hit a traffic curb while coming around a right turn. Katusha, for Alexander Kirstoff, and LottoNL-Jumbo, for Dylan Groenewegen, crashed the superteams’ party in the final two kilometres, sending the peloton’s pace to 65kmh as the flame rouge loomed.

But reigning champion Chris Froome of Britain and fellow favourites Contador and Colombia’s Nairo Quintana finished safely in the bunch.