Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe dusted himself off from a fall to claim the first yellow jersey of the Tour de France on Saturday, winning stage one by a clear margin on a crash-marred opening day.
World champion Alaphilippe shot up the early section of the final 3km climb taking ten bonus seconds at the finish line and ended another 12 seconds ahead of his nearest challenger.
Australia’s Michael Matthews was second and is second overall at 16 seconds while Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic came third and is in the same position in the overall standings 20sec down on the leader.
Crossing the line in his world champion’s rainbow jersey Alaphilippe put his thumb in his mouth in honor of h…
Keep on reading: Alaphilippe emerges from crash carnage with Tour de France lead