Kittel does it again

Royal Grand Départ for Jarrier, Edet and Voigt

Tour de France rookie Benoît Jarrier (Bretagne-Séché Environnement) was the first attacker of the 101st edition as he went away from the gun after the ribbon cutting ceremony honored by the Duchess of Cambridge along with her husband Prince William at the Harewood House. Inspired by this royal Grand Départ, the oldest rider of the race Jens Voigt (Trek Factory Racing) made his move and was accompanied by Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) to make it a leading trio that wasn't chased down by the peloton. All three riders had the same ambition of hunting for King of the Mountains points and take the first polka dot jersey. Jarrier was the fastest atop the first climb and grabbed one point there but also let Voigt know that he and Edet were unbeatable in terms of speed.

Voigt takes two Frenchmen by surprise

Jarrier and Edet weren't interested by the intermediate sprint as they didn't feel concerned by the green jersey, so they let Voigt go for it but the German's acceleration was made for dropping them off for good. Voigt continued his solo effort after km 77 and took two points at the top of Buttertubs Hill in front of an enormous crowd. He doubled up atop Grinton Moor Hill and allowed himself to being reined in with 59km to go while some big names struggled in the first two climbs of the Tour de France: Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), Chris Horner (Lampre-Merida), Christophe Riblon (AG2R-La Mondiale), Dani Navarro (Cofidis), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr)…

Cavendish crashes, Kittel surges

After regrouping, the peloton rode on a slow motion despite a three-quarter tail wind, as if all contenders were satisfied with a bunch sprint finish. Lotto-Belisol led the pack for most of the race until Omega Pharma-Quick Step took the command with 4km to go. Fabian Cancellara (Trek) tried his luck under the flamme rouge but was reined in the last three hundred meters while Mark Cavendish caused a crash and took Simon Gerrans down with him. Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) took profit of the slightly hilly finish to outsprint Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and take the first yellow jersey again one year after he first did in Corsica at the end of stage 1.