Things were looking good for Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) as he had made it into the front group in stage 2 of the Tour de France. Unfortunately, he crashed out of contention and Cofidis left the stage empty-handed.

"We knew it was going to be a complicated stage with the rainand especially wind and storm. Unfortunately Nacer crashed when he was well placed after the intermediate sprint in the right group. It's part of the game for stages like these. You need luck to get succcess," manager Yvon Sanquer said.