Amazement in Copenhagen! The Belgian Yves Lampaert (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) won, on Friday July 1, the inaugural time trial of the Tour de France (13.2 km), which took place in the streets of the Danish capital. The flahute, which was not among the favorites, was finally the most comfortable when the rain, a surprise guest of this first stage of the Grande Boucle, faded somewhat. While Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) seemed to have made the difference, the farmer from Iseghem (Flanders) came to steal the show for five seconds on the finish line. “I beat the great champion Wout van Aert”rejoiced the hero of the day just after the race.
Third place of the day went to Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), double title holder, who finished only two seconds behind Van Aert. The Slovenian will therefore wear the white jersey of the best young rider from the start of the second stage. The world champion in the specialty, Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), was not as comfortable in the turns. The Italian this time finished ten seconds behind Lampaert.
Long leader, another star of the peloton took fifth place in the person of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), 13 seconds behind the best time. The local Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) offers the sixth fastest time in front of his home crowd, pedaling 15 seconds slower than the winner.
If Tadej Pogacar has already made an impression, he has not detached himself from his main rivals, starting with the two men in the artistic tunic of Jumbo-Visma: Jonas Vingegaard (7th) and Primoz Roglic (8th) . With respectively fifteen and sixteen seconds of breaking in on Lampaert, the Dane and the Slovenian perfectly managed their entry into this 109th Big Loop.
Among the other favorites, Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) set the 13th time at 23 seconds from the win, ahead of his teammate and former winner, Geraint Thomas, 17th at 25 seconds. The Russian Aleksandr Vlasov follows closely (20th). He concedes 31 seconds. For the Australian leader of the AG2R Citroën formation, Ben O’Connor (79th), the Tour de France could have started better. The climber from Perth is already 1’01 behind.
In the French clan, we almost believed in the feat. Leading the first intermediate, Christophe Laporte (Jumbo-Visma) fell and had to say goodbye to any hope of wearing the yellow jersey. He finally finished his race 36 seconds behind (25th), behind the best Habs of the day, Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis), 23rd.
As for the climbers, the leader of the Groupama-FDJ formation, David Gaudu (52nd), finished with 50 seconds more than Lampaert’s time. Romain Bardet (Team DSM) finished 37th. Guillaume Martin and Thibaut Pinot are respectively 83rd and 114th with 1’03 and 1’21 behind.