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Published on Wednesday, 08 June 2016 01:23

TDF 2016 Stage 1

Mont St Michel to Utah Beach

Saturday July 2nd, 188kms

The Grand Depart, back in France after two years of starting abroad. A historically significant opening to the race, with the iconic backdrop of Mont-St-Michel seeing the riders off and the finish line at Utah Beach, scene of one of the D-Day landings in June 1944. 

Mont-St-Michel was last used in the Tour in 2013 when Tony Martin blitzed the opening TT course, famously ripping the arse out of his shorts with the sandpaper on his saddle. The first time the Mont St Michel was used in a stage in the TDF was in 1990 when Johan Museeuw won the stage. 

On the 6th of June 1944, the beach of La Madeleine was, under codename ‘Utah Beach', one of five major sites chosen for the deployment of American army forces coming both from air and sea. Utah Beach would play a decisive role in the success of the D-Day operations: over 23,000 soldiers were able to step on French soil in just a few hours and clear the essential access for the allied counterattack.

On July 2nd this year the invasion will be of a bunch of sprinters, and the battle will be one of the most fierce ever fought in the Tour de France. King of the sprint Marcel Kittel, four-time stage winner in 2015 André Greipel, 26 time stage winner Mark Cavendish, Alexander Kristoff looking to make up for drawing a blank last year, local boys Nacer Bouhanni and Bryan Coquard,  Aussie Michael Matthews and the recovering John Degenkolb will all be fighting it out, as well as several other hopefuls. It gives the sprinters the chance to don the first yellow jersey of the race, so it's sure to be a furious battle. 

The Route

Almost a novelty these days to have an opening stage that isn't a prologue or a TT, but instead a long flat stage that should see a sprinter take the yellow jersey on the first stage. They start under the shadow of Mont St Michel and as they follow the coast east and north in the opening 40kms they pass over two little bumps which are categorised as Cat 4 climbs, so we will also see some keen on early publicity go off up the road early in search of the first KOM jersey of the race. 

They continue north along the coast of the Manche until the 110km mark where they start to turn inland and head north-east for around 35kms until they reach the north east coast and loop back south before the run to the finish in Utah Beach, Sainte Marie du Mont. The run in to the finish is straight and flat and will make for a very fast finish. 

Contenders and Favourites

Paddy Power had priced this up for weeks and weeks before the race started, giving us a head start on trying to pick a winner.. And it looks like they think it will be the Germans who come out on top this time in the battle of Utah Beach, with Marcel Kittel the 6/4 favourite and André Greipel 2nd favourite at 3/1. Mark Cavendish is just behind them at 5/1 and then the price doubles for Nacer Bouhanni at 10/1.

Marcel Kittel has come back better than ever this year, and will be looking to add to his eight stage victories in the race. He also has eight victories so far this year and will be looking to take it to double digits over the course of the race. Paris-Nice was the only race he has entered this year where he didn't notch a win, winning stages in Dubai, Algarve, De Panne, Romandie and the Giro, while also winning the only one-day race he entered, the Scheldeprijs.

He was particularly impressive in the Giro, winning the first two road stages, but packed it in ahead of the stage 9 TT to save his legs for the TDF. He was just a different level to Greipel, Viviani and the rest and it took stage 5's hill before the finish to take him out of the race before André Greipel got a chance to take a stage win. With Tony Martin, Vakoc, Vermote and Sabatini in his leadout they should come bossing the leadout in the last 3kms and take him to the 300m to go before he unleashes his unstoppable sprint. A small worry that Greipel beat him to the German Champions jersey, but with a full leadout in front of him again at the TDF there should be no mistake. 

André Greipel took a fantastic hat-trick of wins in the Giro, proving himself to be a tougher battler than Kittel on the days that were anything other than pan-flat. He was only one win behind Kittel with seven wins this season, but he managed to level the scores in style last weekend by beating him in the German Nationals. He'll be dead keen to pull ahead of him on this first opportunity.

He does have two more total stage wins in the TDF than Kittel, with ten wins, Lotto-Soudal are a super-powerful leadout train too though when they get it right, Hansen, Henderson, Debusschere and Sieberg will have him close to, if not level with the EQS train as they hit the last kilometre, and if he gets the jump on Kittel he might just nick it.

Mark Cavendish is peer-less when it comes to stage wins in the TDF, with a massive 26 stage wins in total. He hasn't had as good a year though as the two Germans, winning only three times, but he has also finished 2nd a total of five times. His most recent win came in the last stage of the TOC, beating Sagan and Kristoff, but he didn't get a look in in the other stages, struggling on the hilly route. The Dimension Data leadout team is very experienced, but maybe not the fastest, with Renshaw, Pauwels, Eisel, and EBH.

They very often have to play second fiddle to Lotto and EQS though and it could be the same here I'm afraid. He will be fighting for the wheel of Kittel and Greipel and it could get quite messy, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him out of the top 3. 

Nacer Bouhanni continues to make plenty of enemies in the peloton, his, and the entire teams behaviour in the sprint on stage 1 of the Criterium du Dauphiné drew a lot of criticism, if not sanctions from the commissaires. And his behaviour at his hotel the night of the French Nationals was pretty extraordinary, if consistent, when he ended up punching drunk hotel guests who were keeping him awake with the noise they were making. Not a great prep for his race and indeed he rode 40kms and abandoned.

The French boxer is just one behind Greipel with seven wins this season, so it's been a pretty good year for him so far. He has lots of speed, the leadout got some great practice in the the battles in the Dauphiné and if he can get on the wheel of Kittel in the last 500m, he has a chance of popping out from behind him in the last 100m to nick the stage win. That was before he damaged his hand in this hotel incident though, and it has put me off him a little.

(In fact, ignore all of the above, Bouhanni is out now as a result of his altercation with the hotel guests, he has to have an operation on his hand.. just means there's a better chance now for Coquard for the points jeresy, he has shortened in to around 16/1 now)

Alexander Kristoff and Peter Sagan are both 16/1 and both of them are quite similar in that they would both prefer a tougher, hillier day to take the sting out of the pure sprinters legs, both will struggle to beat the fastest guys here, but Sagan has been flying again in the Tour de Suisse, winning the first two road stages, beating Gaviria and Albasini. 

John Degenkolb continued his rehabilitation from injury at the Dauphiné and he slowly but surely got better as the race went on and he got more race miles in to the legs. Giant-Alpecin were getting so confident about his chances late in the race that they were suddenly coming to the fore as they headed towards the finish in stage 4, in the tough uphill sprint won by EBH. Degenkolb did better than a lot of other sprinters, but still the closest he got was 8th.

He's still managed to race 2,829kms this season, which was only 35kms less than Bling Matthews had done before the start of the Tour de Suisse, but I think Degenkolb will be looking to try to get through this Tour for the training and maybe later in the race when some of his rivals have gone home he might get a chance.. I just can't see him finishing in the top 3 of sprint stages like these just yet.  

Speaking of Bling Matthews, he's 66/1 for this stage, and although that looks massive, I agree with it, it will be too fast for him. He will challenge of course, but it could be like we saw of him in the Tour de Suisse, where on the flatter sprints he was finishing 3rd to 7th. He'll be looking forward to other, tougher stage finishes though, he might even get his chance as early as stage 2. 

Bryan Coquard has been flying this season, landing nine races already, one more than Kittel and Greipel, with another eleven top five placings. 4th in Amstel Gold, 4th in Brabantse Pijl, he's really upped his game this season. He should have won Dwars Door Vlaanderen though, only he celebrated his win too early and a lunging Debusschere stole it from him. His leadout might be a problem though and unless he can get on to a good wheel inside the last kilometre, he might be looking at a 5th to 10th place here - he has never won a World Tour race so it will be some achievement to break that duck against this field.

I originally gave Viviani a chance when I started writing this a few weeks back, but he hasn't been named in Sky's squad, in fact, they have no recognised sprinter on the team, it's all for Froomey. Arnaud Démare also has been left out as the FDJ team could not promise him assistance in the sprints as they look to protect Thibaut Pinot's GC hopes.

After that, Dylan Groenewegen is an interesting one - he's had a fantastic season, culminating in his victory in the Dutch Nationals at the weekend. He'll come in to the TDF wearing the national champs jersey, it's surely going to inspire him to do well this TDF. Lotto-Jumbo are full of big rouleurs, but they get it so wrong, so often that it's difficult to trust them to get it right in what should be a chaotic closing 3kms. 

Sam Bennett will all be battling for a top 10 placing, he has the beating of many of these guys, but do Bora-Argon have the beating of themselves? They too need to work on their leadout, they get it wrong too often to have any confidence in them. Bennett has the speed, but he looks to be low on confidence at the moment and I think I'll wait to see how he goes in this first stage before looking at him for future stages. 

I give a break around a 3-5% chance of winning this stage, I think the sprinter's teams will make sure it ends in a sprint, unless the wind causes havoc and the race gets blown apart and the sprinters get left behind. It looks like it will be win no. 1 for Marcel Kittel though, and the first yellow jersey of the race. It's sure to be very fast and very furious and we might see André chase him home to take a podium, with Bouhanni Groenewegen and Coquard two others who could go close. Groenewegen at 33/1 now interests me a little, if it's wet and wild out there his Lotto-Jumbo team could do well for him and he could nick a podium spot. I think I might be laying Cavendish for a top 3 place when the market settles down on Betfair.

Recommendations:

3pts win on Marcel Kittel at 6/4 with PP

0.5pts each-way on Dylan Groenewegen at 33/1 with Bet365

Matchbets

Sam Bennett to beat Sam Dumoulin - 3pts win at 4/6 with Paddy Power

Bryan Coquard to beat Alexander Kristoff - 2pts at evens with Bet365

Kittel to beat Greipel and Bennett to beat McLay - 2pts at 11/10 with Bet365