Tour de France Stage 1: Adam Bests Simon in Yates Twins Breakaway

UAE’s Adam Yates got free on the descent of the final climb and bested his twin brother Simon, of Jayco AlUla, to win the opening stage of the 2023 Tour de France in Bilbao, Spain. Adam, a possible co-team leader, accelerated up the Cote de Pike with his teammate Tadej Pogacar and defending champion Jonas Vingegaard of Jumbo Visma, setting up for an exciting dash to the line from a stage that was largely bunched together. But Adam got a gap over the top and his brother took the initiative to make contact, allowing for (I’d guess) the first-ever twins solo break in a Tour stage. From there to the line, the pair worked well together and benefited from the slight incline, holding off a chasing group led by Jumbo by 18 seconds. In the final minute, Adam took the lead ahead of Simon and pulled slowly away to win handily, sparing their parents the drama of a sprint to the line. Pogacar accelerated away for third place

The day was lacking in drama until the descent of the penultimate climb, where Movistar’s Enric Mas and EF Education’s Richard Carapaz crashed on a left-turning bend. Mas left the race holding his shoulder, while Carapaz hit both knees and took a long time to remount. He lost significant time, over 15 minutes, and his status has to be touch and go to continue. American Neilson Powless of EF won the sprint up the Côte de Vivero, the only cat-2 climb on the day, giving him the King of the Mountains jersey to begin stage 2 and something for EF Education-EasyPost to fight for even without Carapaz in contention.

Results:

1. YATES Adam, UAE Team Emirates, 4:22:49
2. YATES Simon, Team Jayco AlUla, at :04
3. POGAČAR Tadej, UAE Team Emirates, at :12
4. PINOT Thibaut, Groupama – FDJ, s.t.
5. WOODS Michael, Israel – Premier Tech, s.t.
6. LAFAY Victor, Cofidis
7. HINDLEY Jai, BORA – hansgrohe
8. SKJELMOSE Mattias, Lidl – Trek
9. VINGEGAARD Jonas, Jumbo-Visma
10. GAUDU David, Groupama – FDJ3010

GC

1. Adam Yates

Points

1. Adam Yates, 30
2. Simon Yates, 25

KOM

1. Neilson Powless, EF Education-EasyPost, 5 points

Bilbao – Bilbao 182 km

Bonjoouuurrrrrrrr you cheese eating surrendermonkeys, the Tour de France is here! And as usual we are not in France. The traditional Grand Depart offers a very non-traditional punchy first stage in the Basque Country.

Expected finish time: 17:15-17:45 CEST

Crêpe Hat of the Day : Julian Alaphilippe

Many people are saying we will see Pogi vs. Vingi already on stage one. I think they…