1997 Tour de France
Super Mario wins Tour's first stage; crash splits peloton
By Andrew Hood
Outside Online correspondent
Italy’s Mario Cipollini (Saeco) sprinted to victory and into the maillot jaune Sunday in the second day of the three-week Tour de France, while defending champion Bjarne Riis (Telekom) lost nearly one minute in a serious crash that shook up the overall standings.
Wearing red, white, and blue shorts, the flamboyant Cipollini takes the overall lead from prologue winner Chris Boardman (Gan) after outsprinting second-place finisher Tom Steels (Mapei) and Frederic Moncassin (Gan), who crossed the line third.
“To wear the maillot jaune is a big moment in my career,” said Cipollini after winning his fifth career Tour stage. “This year I’m in good form and only thinking about the Tour.”
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Cipollini takes the lead with
an aggressive move
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While Riis wasn’t seriously injured in the late crash that sent dozens of racers sprawling to the pavement, the Dane finished 58 seconds off a lead group of riders and fell to 67th overall at 1:23 back.
More importantly, Riis sits more than one minute behind key challengers, including teammate and last year’s runner-up Jan Ullrich, Cofidis’s Tony Rominger, and Banesto’s Abraham Olano, who round out the top five.
Barring disaster, Ullrich, Rominger, and Olano will enter the first climbing stages later next week in the Pyrenees with a one-minute lead on Riis.
“It’s not the end of the world that he lost the time,” said Telekom’s directeur sportif Walter Godefroot. “Riis was upset that the team went off to set up the sprint without waiting for him.”
The peloton split into three groups as riders went down in the middle of the pack just after catching a three-man breakaway in the final kilometers of the 199km (119-mile) first stage from Rouen to Forges-les-Eaux in the Normandy region of France.
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The peloton catches the lead pack with 5 miles to go
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ONCE’s Alex Zulle, riding with a broken left shoulder, lost 1:35 to the lead group after he was held up in the spill. Several riders were seriously injured, including Gilles Talmant (Big Mat), who fractured his left arm.
The long, flat stages early in the Tour de France are always deceptive. Seemingly just a warm up before the “real” race starts in the climbing stages while the sprinters have their fun, these early stages can spell disaster for riders.
Similar to an early crash in the 1996 Tour, Luc Leblanc (Polti) went down in the spill, knocking last year’s sixth-place finisher down to 137th overall at 2:20 back.
“It seems I always have bad luck in my career. I always crash at bad times. They say I am strongest when I give time to the others. I hope that they are right,” Leblanc said.
Powered by the Saeco and Gan teams, the peloton reeled in Casino’s Arturas Kasputis, TVM’s Servais Knaven, and Batik’s Luca Colombo, who broke midway through the stage.
In the final sprint, Cipollini confirmed he’s one of the best sprinters in the peloton, riding dangerously close to the barriers to bolt ahead in the final stretch. Called the “Lion King” and “Super Mario,” Cipollini wore the yellow jersey for two days in 1993.
“I wasn’t well-placed for the sprint,” said Steels, who won a stage in last month’s Tour de Suisse. “There’s only one way to beat Cipollini and that’s to be on his wheel. When I got there in the final 100 meters, it was too late.”
Cofidis's Frankie Andreu remains the top American at 13th overall at 29 seconds back. U.S. Postal's George Hincapie finished with the first group to move to 23th overall at 37 seconds back.
The 21-stage, 3,950km (2,370-mile) Tour continues Monday with the third stage 262 kms (157 miles) from St. Valery-en-Caux along the Atlantic Coast to Vire, near Mont St. Michel.
Correction: Saturday's report incorrectly stated U.S. Postal’s best finish. It was Denmark’s Peter Meinert-Nielsen posting the team’s best in 6th place in the opening prologue.
Stage 1 results
Andrew Hood is Outside Online's European cycling correspondent.
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