Stage win, yellow, green and polka dot jerseys add up to Belgian team’s finest hour in the Tour
For Belgian team Quick Step a good performance as the Tour de France crossed its home roads was important. Until his last minute withdrawal with knee problems it looked likely that the team’s big star Tom Boonen was the likely rider to shine on the sprinter’s finish on stage 1 in Brussels, the Belgian capital.
Instead it was the team’s French contingent, Sylvain Chavanel and Jérôme Pineau, that would provide the Belgian team with its biggest ever day in the Tour.
Chavanel took Quick Step’s first Tour stage victory since Gert Steegmans won on the Champs-Elysées in Paris in 2008, and he gives the team its first maillot jaune since Boonen wore it early in the 2006 race.
“It was a terrific race,” said Chavanel of his solo stage victory. “To win on Belgian roads for a Belgian team and to have the honour tomorrow of riding into France wearing the yellow jersey is a dream come true for me. I still haven’t realised what I’ve accomplished.”
The Frenchman suffered a horrific accident during the Liège-Bastogne-Liège when he crashed into a team car on a descent while chasing back onto the peloton. He fractured the base of his skull, keeping him out of racing until last month’s Tour de Suisse.
“This year I had a difficult moment,” he explained, “perhaps the worst in my career, after the terrible fall in the Liège-Bastogne-Liège but this victory has repaid me for all my past suffering.”
Due to a rider protest after the huge crash on the descent of the Col de Stockeu, Chavanel was the only rider actually racing by the end of the stage. He didn’t know about the events in the peloton though, he says.
“I only found out after the finish line about what had happened behind me,” said the Frenchman, “with the fall of the group towards the end. Sometimes in life you’re just in the right place at the right time and I was ready for my moment. On the down hills I was very careful and then I just concentrated on pedalling, giving it my all until the finish line.”
As well as the yellow jersey the 25 points for the stage win, added to 10 more picked up on intermediate sprints, gave Chavanel the lead in the green points jersey competition. Unsurprisingly he was also awarded the red dossard of most aggressive rider to wear on tomorrow’s stage.
Also in the original eight-man breakaway with Chavanel was the team’s other French rider Jérôme Pineau. By outsprinting the rest, including Giro d’Italia mountains jersey winner Matthew Lloyd of Quick Step’s big Belgian rival OmegaPharma-Lotto, on the first four climbs, he was awarded the polka-dot climber’s jersey at the end of the stage.
“I’m thrilled,” said Pineau. “Sylvain and I had a great race. If I captured the polka dot jersey Chavanel also gets some credit, since not only did he win the stage, he helped me on all the mountain grand prix.”
“In the Giro d’Italia we won two stages,” he continued, “one of them I won and I worn the red [points] jersey for a few days; here at the Tour de France history is repeating itself, actually, we’re doing even better and let’s hope it stays that way.”
Quick Step will leave its native Belgium tomorrow as the race enters France with three of the four jerseys (although the green jersey will be worn by Lampre-Farnese Vini sprinter Alessandro Petacchi). With a healthy lead for Chavanel, and very few climbs in the coming days, both riders will look to hold onto at least two of those jerseys for a while.