Alejando Valverde, riding for team Caisse D'Espargne, rocketed past Team Columbia rider Kim Kirchen to capture the win in the first stage of the 2008 Tour de France.
Valverde came from tenth or twelfth position with two kilometers to go, passing the leaders and capturing the yellow jersey for overall race leader with a tremendous burst of speed over the last quarter-kilometer.
95th Tour de France—World's Biggest Cycling Event
The Tour de France, the world's premier bicycle race, is a thirty-five hundred kilometer, three-week endurance event that attracts the finest cyclists from around the globe.
The rage is run in twenty-one stages, each of approximately 200 km. Some are time trials, run solo against the clock. Some are mountain climbs, where riders struggle up the highest mountain passes in the Alps, and tear down the back side at over fifty miles per hour.
180 riders start the event. As a rule about a fifth do not finish.
The Tour attracts more television viewers than any other sporting event, over the span of its 21 stages.
First Stage
The first stage of the 95th Tour de France started in the western coastal town of Brest, heading 197.5 km into the French countryside to the town of Plumelec.
This is an interesting stage: the finish is a steep two-kilometer climb, punishing the sprinters. The road climbs 105 meters over the last two kilometers—more than half a mile rise in elevation over the last 1.2 miles.
The first attack came three kilometers into the race, as a group of eight broke away.
The eight in the lead are: Lilian Jegou of Francaise des Jeux, Thomas Voeckler of Bouygues Telecom, Stephane Auge of Cofidis, David De La Fuente of Saunier Duval (SDV), Ruben Perez of Euskaltel—Euskadi, Jose Luis Arrieta of AG2R-La Mondiale, Geoffroy Lequatre of Agritubel, and Bjorn Schroeder riding for Milram.
This group maintained a lead of four to eight minutes throughout the first three quarters of the stage.
Stephane Auge, riding with the breakaway, got a puncture but swapped in a new wheel and re-caught the break
Two-and-a-half hours in, Cofidis rider Herve Duclos-Lassalle crashed while negotiating the first feeding station (where riders pick up bags of food from support workers.) This was his first Tour, and sadly he is out on the first day with a fractured left wrist.
90 km into the race break 4:40 ahead of peloton, 120 km gone, still four-minute gap between peloton and breakaway.
Lotto—Silence rider Yaroslav Popovych crashed with about 65 km to go, taking several riders with him: Fabian Wegmann, Jimmy Casper, Frank Schleck and Sylvain Chavanel. All the riders were able to rejoin the peloton.
With fifty kilometers to go, the peloton was still three minutes behind the breakaway—it began to seem as it the eight attackers might maintain their lead.
With forty km to go, the gap to the lead group was down below two-and-one-half minutes. It would seem impossible for the breakaway to maintain its lead.
The Attacks Begin
Stephane Auge attacked with 36 km to go. The lead group reeled him back in, but the quick sprint dropped Schroeder off the back of the breakaway.
As the lead riders begin sparring, they waste energy and lose rhythm dropping the overall speed of the group. The more each rider fights for the lead, the greater the chance that the whole group will be caught up by the peloton and all their efforts will be wasted.
Then David De La Fuente tried to grab the lead. Lilian Jegou answered, and the pair took off, leaving the rest of the break 100 meters behind.
Schroeder was able to rejoin the breakaway, but the group was beginning to look ragged—it seemed very much that their time was about up.
With twenty-two km to go, several riders in the back of the peloton crashed. No one was injured.
With twenty-one the peloton started racing in earnest, determined to run down the breakaway. The leading pair of De La Fuente and Jegou were one minute thirty seconds ahead
Back in the peloton, the various teams were setting up to send their sprinters to the front for the final run. Team Columbia took the lead in the peloton with 18 km to go.
With ten kilometers to go there was another crash in the back of the peloton. Barloworld's Juan Mauricio Soler, who was involved in the crash, pushed hard to rejoin the peloton. The crash ended Soler's hope of taking the first yellow jersey.
Meanwhile, the front of the peloton ran down the breakaway, bringing the front of field together.
Silence-Lotto and Columbia moved out strongly, bringing their sprinters to the head of the peloton, to avoid the crashed in the back and to be positioned for the final climb. Team Columbia set a very quick pace with Team Lotto right behind them.
With 1.4 km to go Romain Feillu of Agritubel made an attack. For several seconds, no one responded; then Stefan Schumacher of the Gerolsteiner team answered the attack, opening several hundered meters gap over the field. It was too soon, however, and he couldn't maintain the pace.
Kim Kirchen of Team Columbia was next to go, pedaling strongly, followed ten lengths back by Alejandro Valverde of Caisse D'Epargne, while Schumacher fell off.
Kirchen opened what seemed to be an insurmountable gap, but then, in the final 250 meters, Valverde put on an incredible burst of speed and closed the gap, passed Kirchen, and went right by him, winning the race.
Kirchen burnt himself out trying to catch Valverde, and was passed by Philippe Gilbert of Francaise des Jeux and Jerome Pineau of Bouygues Telecom right at the finish line.
Final Standings-Stage One:
- 1. Alejandro Valverde Caisse D'Epargne
- 2. Philippe Gilbert Francaise des Jeux
- 3. Jerome Pineau Bouygues Telecom
- 4. Kim Kirchen Team Columbia
- 5. Riccardo Ricco Saunier Duval
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