It was the first stage of the 2020 Tour de France in sunny Nice. Except it wasn’t sunny – heavy rain turned the roads as slippery as ice and riders went down left, right and centre. A rider-led neutralisation of the final descent was the calm before a scrappy sprint finish, won in storming style by UAE Emirates’ Alexandre Kristoff, putting him in yellow for the first time in his career. But that was almost the least surprising thing about the stage.
Oh my goodness, there’s never a dull day on this edition of the Tour de France! First, the break of the day made it to the line. Matteo Trentin produced a fabulous bare-chested, tongue-lolling solo raid to give Mitchelton-Scott their fourth victory. The Italian rouleur timed his attack from a winnowed super-break to perfection, keeping his gap ahead of Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-QuickStep) all the way into Gap. Asgreen’s teammate, Julian Alaphilippe, stays in yellow for another stage. Back in the peloton, things were relaxed until tempers frayed between Team Ineos’ Luke Rowe and Tony Martin (Jumbo-Visma) resulting in both their expulsions from the race. With the Alps looming who knows how crucial this could be?
Like an intra-articular injection to the knee, Tweets of the Week is here to ease the pain, cycling fans. This week, we have some muddy but happy riders, some muddy but decidedly unhappy riders, some Dreamchasers and Lord Hoy as a bottle blond. Remember, Tweets is just good, muddy fun …
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