Tour de France Stage 1: Crashes cause chaos as Petacchi wins in Brussels

Alessandro Petacchi of Lampre-Farnese Vini outsprinted Mark Renshaw of HTC-Columbia and Thor Hushovd of Cervelo TestTeam to take the win as a series of crashes inside the closing couple of kilometres wreaked chaos on Stage 1 of the Tour de France in Brussels this afternoon.

The first of those chutes, which took place on the right hand bend leading into the finishing straight, happened as Mark Cavendish struggled to keep his line and drifted across the to the outside, the HTC-Columbia sprinter hitting the tarmac along with riders including Rabobank’s Oscar Freire and Cervelo TestTeam’s Jeremy Hunt.

Moments later, below the flamme rouge that marks the start of the final kilometre, just as the remaining sprinters were setting themselves up to fight for the line, another massive crash around 20 riders back resulted in the entire road being blocked.

The yellow jersey, Fabian Cancellara was one of the riders caught up in the chaos, although with the crashes happening inside the last 3km of the 223.5km stage, all those riding in the peloton when they took place will receive the same time, meaning that the Team Saxo Bank rider retains the overall lead.

Earlier, it had looked good for Cavendish as the race entered its closing 10km as HTC-Columbia’s train hit the front of the peloton, reeling in Maarten Wynants of Quick Step, the sole survivor of a three-man break that got away at the start of the stage, and Alexandr Pliuschin of Katusha, who had bridged the gap from the main field to join the Belgian with 25km to go.

With today’s stage taking the race from Holland into Belgium, it was little surprise that Rabobank’s Lars Boom went on the attack the moment the commissaire’s flag dropped, and Wynants of Quick Step and Euskaltel's Alan Perez managed to go with him, the trio sharing the points between them in the three intermediate sprints until Wynants was left on his own with around 30km to go.

While Holland’s traffic-calming road furniture didn’t result in the same havoc on the race as it had done in the early stages of this year’s Giro d’Italia, a Dutch dog caused a chute as it got away from its owner and brought down green jersey wearer David Millar of Garmin-Transitions and Liquigas-Doimo’s Ivan Basso.

The stage was ridden in glorious sunshine, a contrast to the rain that greeted yesterday’s Prologue in Rotterdam, and despite the wind and a zig-zagging course along the North Sea coast as the race headed towards the Belgian border, the peloton held together, with the weather also bringing out huge crowds in Antwerp en route to the Belgian capital.

Tour de France Stage 1, Rotterdam-Brussels (224.5km)

1	PETACCHI Alessandro   LAMPRE-FARNESE	  5h 09' 38"
2	RENSHAW Mark	      TEAM HTC-COLUMBIA	     "
3	HUSHOVD Thor	      CERVELO TEST TEAM	     "	
4	MC EWEN Robbie	      KATUSHA TEAM           "
5	LADAGNOUS Matthieu    FDJ	             "
6	OSS Daniel	      LIQUIGAS-DOIMO	     "
7	ROJAS Jose Joaquin    CAISSE D’EPARGNE	     "
8	KNEES Christian	      TEAM MILRAM	     "
9	PEREZ MORENO Ruben    EUSKALTEL-EUSKADI	     "
10	ROELANDTS Jürgen      OMEGA PHARMA-LOTTO     "	
11	TURGOT Sébastien      BBOX BOUYGUES TELECOM  "	
12	GERDEMANN Linus	      TEAM MILRAM	     "
13	EL FARES Julien	      COFIDIS                "
14	ROBERTS Luke	      TEAM MILRAM	     "
15	THOMAS Geraint	      SKY PRO CYCLING	     "
16	SIVTSOV Kanstantsin   TEAM HTC-COLUMBIA      "	
17	CHAVANEL Sylvain      QUICK STEP	     "
18	BOASSON HAGEN Edvald  SKY PRO CYCLING	     "
19	BARREDO Carlos	      QUICK STEP	     "
20	BARRY Michaël	      SKY PRO CYCLING	     "

Tour de France General Classification after Stage 1

1	CANCELLARA Fabian     TEAM SAXO BANK	 5h 19' 38"   
2	MARTIN Tony	      HTC-COLUMBIA	 + 00' 10"
3	MILLAR David	      GARMIN-TRANSITIONS + 00' 20"
4	ARMSTRONG Lance	      TEAM RADIOSHACK	 + 00' 22"
5	THOMAS Geraint	      SKY PRO CYCLING	 + 00' 23"
6	CONTADOR Alberto      ASTANA	         + 00' 27"
7	FARRAR Tyler	      GARMIN-TRANSITIONS + 00' 28"
8	LEIPHEIMER Levi	      TEAM RADIOSHACK	 + 00' 28"
9	BOASSON HAGEN Edvald  SKY PRO CYCLING	 + 00' 32"
10	GERDEMANN Linus	      TEAM MILRAM	 + 00' 35"
11	BOOKWALTER Brent      BMC RACING TEAM	 + 00' 35"
12	MALORI Adriano	      LAMPRE - FARNESE	 + 00' 35"
13	BRAJKOVIC Janez	      TEAM RADIOSHACK	 + 00' 35"
14	ROGERS Michael	      HTC-COLUMBIA	 + 00' 35"
15	PLAZA MOLINA Ruben    CAISSE D’EPARGNE	 + 00' 36"
16	TERPSTRA Niki	      TEAM MILRAM	 + 00' 36"
17	KLÖDEN Andréas	      TEAM RADIOSHACK	 + 00' 36"
18	KIRYIENKA Vasil	      CAISSE D’EPARGNE	 + 00' 38"
19	VINOKOUROV Alexandre  ASTANA	         + 00' 38"
20	KREUZIGER Roman	      LIQUIGAS-DOIMO	 + 00' 38"