Stage 1

The road

At the start

The Vendée, and a hill at the end

The Tour starts in the Vendée with no prologue and no time bonuses anywhere in the three weeks, so the first yellow jersey has to be taken on the road. It will be taken on a hill: out across the Passage du Gois, then inland to a two-and-a-half kilometre drag up Mont des Alouettes above Les Herbiers. Too hard for the pure sprinters, and made for Philippe Gilbert, who has won almost everything else this season.

How it was won

1. 1189 km to go

   First blood on the Passage du Gois

   The Tour opens across the causeway that wrecked it in 1999, this time only as a ceremonial run-out. It still takes a victim: André Greipel goes down on the wet stone and remounts with a bloodied elbow before the flag has even dropped.

2. 2104 km to go

   The one big sprint

   This year there is a single intermediate sprint instead of several, twenty points to the first man through, and it is worth a fight. Jérémy Roy takes it from the break; behind, Tyler Farrar comes off the front of the bunch for fourth while Mark Cavendish fades badly, as though his heart is not in it.

3. 318 km to go

   Omega Pharma close the door

   Quemeneur, Westra and Roy have been away since the first minute of the Tour. Philippe Gilbert's team reel them in with eighteen kilometres left, having ridden the whole day for one hill.

4. 4At the line

   Gilbert kicks on Mont des Alouettes

   Two and a half kilometres of gently rising road above Les Herbiers, and the newly crowned Belgian champion with his freshly bleached hair does the thing he has done all year. Nobody comes with him. First stage, first yellow jersey, and the most impressive win yet in a glittering season.

The result