Stage 1

The road

At the start

Cancellara in yellow, Brussels ahead

Fabian Cancellara starts the first road stage in the maillot jaune, ten seconds up on Tony Martin and twenty on David Millar, with Contador at 27 seconds and Geraint Thomas already fifth. Mathias Frank and Manuel Cardoso never made the start line. Today is 223.5 kilometres from Rotterdam to Brussels — flat, exposed, and finishing on wide city roads that will be shoulder to shoulder for the last ten of them.

How it was won

1. 130 km to go

   Onto the Mechelen cobbles

   With thirty kilometres left the break is inside a minute as the leaders hit one of the cobbled avenues of Mechelen. Wynants goes alone, Pliuschin bridges, and the two of them stretch it back out to a minute before HTC-Columbia start to pull.

2. 22 km to go

   Cavendish takes the sprint down with him

   Two kilometres out, in a turn, Cavendish clips the wheel of his own teammate and veers across the road, taking Jeremy Hunt, Oscar Freire and a Lampre rider into the barriers. Behind them Farrar's bike hooks on Lloyd Mondory's fallen machine and the fastest man in the race is out of his own sprint.

3. 3At the line

   Petacchi out of the wreckage

   Brett Lancaster launches at 500 metres, too early and with nobody on his wheel, and Alessandro Petacchi comes past him for a first Tour stage since 2003. Mark Renshaw, promoted from lead-out man to sprinter in the space of ten seconds, takes second; Hushovd is third.

The result