Alessandro Pettachi turned back the clock in Brussels, taking his first Tour victory since 2003 in winning Stage 1 a 223km flat affair from Rotterdam to Brussels. In a crash filled stage, Australia's Mark Renshaw finished second (Robbie McEwen was fourth), while Thor Husvhod avoided all the pile ups to finish third.
The first open road stage of this years Tour was marred not by wind, but by a series of crashes in the final three kilometres that resulted in a small group of 30 contesting the final sprint. Luckily, with a multitude of sprinters and GC contenders caught up in the spills, there was no major injuries, with the worst for the day being a broken collarbone suffered by Australia's Adam Hansen in an earlier crash. With the crashes coming in the last three kilometres, all the riders received the same time on the day, allowing Fabian Cancellara to keep his Yellow jersey.
But there were still a handful of quality sprinters that survived all the tumbles to contest the sprint finish, and the fastest off them was the Italian giant Pettachi, who finally added to his four stage wins in 2003 by easily holding off Australia's Mark Renshaw. Renshaw is usually the key lead out man for Mark Cavendish, but with the Manx Man hitting the deck with about 2km to go he was left to fight for himself. He proved an admirable back up finishing second as he did in Paris in the final stage last year. Mr Consistency, Thor Hushovd, showed why he is such a danger in the green jersey competition, as he also avoided the carnage to finish third on the day and garner himself a golden 26 points in the points competition on a day when the likes of Cavendish, Oscar Freire, and Tyler Farrar all missed the boat. He would now be close to favourite to wear the Green jersey in Paris.
Tonight's Stage - Stage 2 sees the riders travel just over 200km through Belgium from Brussels to Spa, in a stage with a profile that looks remarkably like that of a spring classic. In fact many of the roads used in Liege-Bastogne-Liege feature here. Given that, a good tip for the win would be a classics specialists such as Fabian Cancellara, who would love nothing more than to take a stage victory while wearing the golden fleece.
Yellow Jersey - Fabian Cancellara
Green Jersey - Alessandro Pettachi
White Jersey - Tony Martin
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