184 riders took off this morning, glad to see continued blue skies and sunshine.

The day's break took off literally from the start. When the gun sounded, Romain Sicard (Euskaltel), Bertjan Lindeman (Vacansoleil) and Yannick Talabardon (Sojasun) jumped and didn't look back. The gap reached 7:20 after 42 km, but then started dropping slightly and gradually until the fortune seekers were duly caught with 22 km still to race.

The organizers had carefully built in a categorized climb to this stage, so that the mountain jersey could be awarded. The peloton tackled the not-so-mighty Col de Buthiers at km 119.5. With its 500 m long climb with a gradient of 4.2%, it is ranked only category four, and was rapidly negotiated by the riders, with Lindeman taking the mountain jersey.

20 km from the finish line the high pace forced a split in the peloton leaving, among others, Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), David Millar (Garmin Sharp) and Jens Voigt (RadioShack Leopard) among the casualties left behind in the second group. A mechanical problem saw Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) caught in the middle of the two groups before dropping back into the chase group where he would remain for the duration of the stage despite the determined efforts from his teammates to bridge the gap.

At the end of the day it all came down to the predictable bunch sprint. Using all his tactical nous, French champion Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ), although riding without his leadout train, found the right wheel to follow and narrowly defeated the old fox, Petacchi, to take the stage and the overall lead as well.

Top ten, stage1:

1 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) FDJ
2 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre-Merida
3 Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling
4 Jens Debusschere (Bel) Lotto Belisol
5 Heinrich Haussler (Aus) IAM Cycling
6 Mark Renshaw (Aus) Blanco Pro Cycling Team
7 Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Movistar Team
8 Leigh Howard (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge
9 Borut Bozic (Slo) Astana Pro Team
10 Romain Feillu (Fra) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team

Top 5, general classification:

1 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) FDJ 4:51:01

2 Damien Gaudin (Fra) Team Europcar

3 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0:00:01

4 Elia Viviani (Ita) Cannondale Pro Cycling

5 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Lampre-Merida 0:00:02