Several riders spoke of holding back slightly to avoid the fate that befell Valverde. Porte took a recon ride in the car behind early-starting teammate Nicholas Roche, who crashed, which Porte confessed rattled him a bit. “Keeping it rubber-side down was probably more the goal,” said Porte afterward. The question is whether that caution will cost him and other challengers 20 stages from now.One takeaway that is clear? Froome’s Sky team is incredibly strong. Aside from Geraint Thomas’s stage win, Sky put riders in third, sixth and eighth place on the day. Only Quick-Step, with Matteo Trentin in 5th and Marcel Kittel 9th, managed to put more than one rider in the top 10 and just two other teams—Astana and Movistar—got two riders each into the top 20.So, just one stage in to the race, defending champion Froome is in a great position. He has a strong team, and he was best-placed of all the GC contenders by considerable margin. In just 14 kilometres and a little over 16 minutes of racing, he’s already 19 seconds clear of his closest even-plausible challenger: LottoNL-Jumbo’s Robert Gesink. Nairo Quintana lost 36 seconds to Froome; Dan Martin lost 37 seconds; and Romain Bardet, Fabio Aru and Alberto Contador conceded 39, 40 and 42 seconds, respectively.This year’s Tour de France course is an odd one: short on TT kilometres, and with only a few true mountaintop finishes. Chances to make up chunks of time are somewhat rare. And with Sky looking as strong as they do, that may reduce even those meager opportunities.
Valverde’s shocking DNF is also a massive hit to Movistar’s hopes. The team still has its leader in Quintana. But he went deep at May’s Giro d’Italia trying to win that race, and the last two contenders to attempt the Giro-Tour double—Vincenzo Nibali last year and Contador in 2015—weren’t able to make the podium in the Tour.
Other than in the breakaway scenario, Kittel is the only rider with even an outside shot at taking the race lead today. The only other sprinters within 30 seconds of Thomas are Sunweb’s Michael Matthews and five-time green jersey winner Peter Sagan of Bora-Hansgrohe. Stage 3 features a short but steep and technical uphill finish that suits them, but not Kittel, who climbs like he has a fear of heights. Stage 4 is another possible sprint finish.
Mathematically, it’s possible Sagan or Matthews could take the overall race lead on Stage 4 based on time bonuses. But one of them would have to finish second or better on stages 2, 3 and 4, and even then, he wouldn’t hold the lead more than a day because Stage 5 is the race’s first real summit finish on Planches des Belles Filles, where the lead might revert right back to Sky (Froome loves that climb).
So, long story short, Sky may be in for a long defense of the race lead—right now by Thomas and by Froome later in the race. In fact, the team’s best outcome is that a breakaway wins on Stage 2 by a modest margin. Responsibility for chasing a breakaway in a stage race traditionally falls to the race leader’s team. But don’t be surprised if a few riders get off the front on Sunday and Sky doesn’t seem to care THAT much about catching them. If the sprinters want a sprint, their teams may have to shoulder the load.