Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) proved that he is fully ready to contend for the overall victory in the Tour de France when he won today’s hilly second stage of the race and secured the yellow jersey in the process. After the final climb, the Italian champion exploited a moment of hesitation from his fellow favourites to launch a well-timed move and held off Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) who won the sprint for second, by 2 seconds.

 

The 2014 season has definitely panned out as Vincenzo Nibali had hoped for but he has always claimed that he would be reach his best form for the Tour de France. Having won the Italian championships one week ago, he used today’s second stage of the French grand tour to prove himself right.

 

The brutally steep Jenkin Road presented itself as a major obstacle in the finale and after the likes of Chris Froome (Sky) and Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) had slightly tested each other on the slopes, a select group of favourites emerged in the front. Peter Sagan (Cannondale) had looked comfortable on the ascent and was the big favourite but with no teammates at his side, he faced a difficult challenge of controlling the group.

 

Nibali’s teammate Jakob Fuglsang was the first to attack and briefly got a small gap but when Greg Van Avermaet joined him, the move was doomed. Instead, Romain Bardet (Ag2r) and Tony Gallopin (Lotto Belisol) tried but they had no luck either.

 

When the pair was brought back, the riders again looked at each other and this was when Nibali saw his chance. The Italian made a wily move and surprisingly no one responded.

 

Nibali quickly got a big gap and behind the chase never got organized. Sky and Lotto Belisol both briefly reacted but never went full gas in a quest to bring the Italian back.

 

The situation looked dangerous when Froome and Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) got a gap and the Brit fully committed to his attack. However, Nibali dug very deep and managed to stay away to take his first Tour de France stage victory.

 

Froome and Costa were brought back and instead Van Avermaet, Sagan and Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) sprinted for second. The Belgian proved to be the fastest while Sagan had to settle for fourth in the stage where he was the big favorite.

 

Most of the race favourites finished in the Froome group but a few missed out by a few seconds. Chris Horner (Lampre), Frank Schleck (Trek), Mathias Frank (IAM) and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) all failed to keep up with the main favourites on the final climb and lost a few seconds in the end.

 

For race leader Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano), it was a hard day and the German lost contact with the peloton 60km from the finish. He finished with the gruppetto more than 20 minutes back and so lost the yellow jersey after just one day.

 

Instead, Nibali took over the race lead and the Italian has now completed his collection of grand tour leader’s jerseys. He takes a 2-second lead over Sagan into tomorrow’s completely flat 155km from Cambridge to London which is expected to bring the English adventure to an end with a big bunch sprint.

 

A hilly classic

After the dramatic opening stage, the Tour de France continued with a very hilly 201km stage from York to Sheffield. After a mostly flat beginning, the riders hit the first climb at the 47km mark and from there, the riders had little chance to recover. A total of 9 categorized climbs offered a challenging race and the Cote de Jenkin Road came just 5km from the line before a flat run into Sheffield brought the race to ane end.

 

The race took off under beautiful sunshine with one notable non-starter as Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) had failed to recover from his injuries and was unable to continue the race. Hence, 197 riders took the start in York and the attacking started right from the gun.

 

The break is formed

Armindo Fonseca (Bretagne) took off right from the beginning and was quickly joined by Matthew Busche (Trek), Perrig Quemeneur (Europcar), Blel Kadri (Ag2r), Cyril Lemoine (Cofidis) and David De La Cruz (NetApp-Endura) to form a 6-rider move. The sextet worked well together to build a small gap while the attacking continued in the peloton.

 

None of those counterattacks were successful and already after 6km of racing, the peloton stopped to take a natural break. Bart De Clercq (Lotto-Belisol) just managed to sneak off the front before the lull started and after a short chase he managed to join the front group.

 

Giant and Cannondale lead the chase

When the gap had reached 2.25, Giant-Shimano hit the front with Albert Timmer and Cheng Ji and they soon got some assistance from Cannondale’s Jena-Marc Marino. The trio kept the gap stable between the 2.30 and 3.00 marks for a long time before Marino was replaced by his teammate Ted King on the front.

 

On the first climb of the day, Lemoine and Fonseca proved that they were the fastest riders in the group, with the former beating the latter convincingly. The gap went up to 3.45 but after the climb, the peloton again upped the pace.

 

Crashes

The stage was littered with crashes and Simon Gerrans, Leopold König, Tejay van Garderen and race leader Kittel were among the riders to hit the deck, luckily with no major consequences. After 60km of racing, Sky briefly joined the chase effort with Xabier Zandio but soon left it to Cannondale and Giant to continue their work.

 

The escapees were not concerned with the intermediate sprint where Kadri was allowed to take maximum points ahead of De La Cruz. Behind Cannondale and Katusha tried to lead out Peter Sagan and Alexander Kristoff respectively but it was the Russian team that won the battle. However, Bryan Coquard (Europcar) did a good sprint to beat Kristoff, Andre Greipel and Sagan.

 

A fight for position

The gap had now come down to 1.35 but went back up to a little more than 2 minutes. Here it was kept stable for a long time despite the fact that no one was really chasing. Instead, the fight for position increased the pace, with Tinkoff-Saxo, Garmin, Belkin and Cannondale all featuring prominently near the front.

 

On the second climb, Perrig Quemeneur made a great attack to take maximum points while Lemoine beat De La Cruz in the sprint for the remaining point on offer. On the third climb, De La Cruz tried to copy that feat but after an attack by Busche, it came down to a sprint where Lemoine beat De La Cruz.

 

More points for Lemoine

BMC briefly accelerated in the peloton but soon after it was again the fight for position that dominated proceedings. The sprinters now started to struggle, with Arnaud Demare (FDJ) being the first to get dropped.

 

On the next climb, Lemoine again beat De La Cruz in a sprint while Movistar had now also moved into position. The gap had now come down to 1.15 and as the fight for position intensified in the run-in to the only category 2 climb, it started to melt away.

 

Porte hits the deck

Lampre, FDJ and Astana were now also prominent near the front while drama unfolded just before the climb when Nicolas Roche (Tinkoff) and Richie Porte (Sky) hit the deck. It took a long time for the latter to get going and he had to use the entire 4.7km climb to get back to the main group where his Sky teammates had now taken control.

 

At the bottom of the climb, the gap was only 10 seconds and so Kadri decided to attack. Only Lemoine and Fonseca could keep up with him but soon after Fonseca and later also Lemoine fell off the pace.

 

Kadri impresses

Kadri was the only surviving escapee while Vasil Kiriyenka set the pace for Sky. Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) launched an attack and later Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) also took off.

 

Voeckler joined Kadri who had extended his advantage to 55 seconds but surprisingly, the Ag2r rider dropped his companion. Edet caught Voeckler just before the top and beat the Europcar rider in the sprint for second at the top.

 

Cannondale start to chase

Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Marcus Burghardt (BMC) and Cyril Gautier (Europcar) had also taken off and they caught Edet and Voeckler to from a strong quintet. Behind, Kittel and most of the sprinters had been dropped as Sky continued to lead the chasse.

 

With 50km to go, Cannondale took over the pace-setting with Maciej Bodnar, King and Kristijan Koren but at that point Kadri was 1.15 ahead. Impressively, he managed to hold off the chase group but when Tinkoff-Saxo upped the pace with Daniele Bennati and Michael Mørkøv, he started to lose ground to the peloton.

 

Garmin make the peloton splinter

The chase group was brought back and as they hit the next climb with 34km to go with Martin on the front, it was over for Kadri. As the peloton exploded to pieces, Garmin-Sharp took over, with Alex Howes upping the pace before Tom-Jelte Slagter took over.

 

As Slagter led Andrew Talansky over the top, the group was down to just around 20 riders but as they stopped their acceleration, a lot of riders managed to rejoin them. Geraint Thomas took over the pace-setting for Sky and led the peloton all the way up the next climb but just before the top he was passed by Andriy Grivko (Astana) who took maximum points.

 

Rolland attacks

On the penultimate climb, Marco Marcato set the pace for Cannondale while Alexander Kristoff (Katuha) finally lost contact with the peloton. Gautier took over to set up Pierre Rolland for the KOM sprint and near the top the Europcar leader accelerated.

 

He was joined by Jean-Christophe Peraud (Ag2r) and after having taken the two points at the top, he urged on his companion to continue the acttack. In the peloton Thomas set the pace for Sky until Cannondale took over with Fabio Sabatini.

 

Back together

The Italian had almost caught the duo with 14km to go when Rolland decided to attack on his own. However, he never got more than a 15-second gap as Marcato, Alessandro De Marchi and Sabatini set a hard pace for Cannondlae.

 

With 8km to go, Orica-GreenEDGE took over with Simon Clarke who brought Rolland back. His teammate Jens Keukeleire led the peloton onto the final climb where Marcato accelerated and got a gap with Michael Albasini (Orica).

 

Froome and Contador test each other

As Contador accelerated, the pair was caught and the Spaniard put in another small dig before the top. With the line in sight, Froome made an attack but it was a 15-rider group that crested the summit together.

 

Fuglsang attacked on the descent but Froome immediately shut it down. Sagan took over and led the peloton all the way to the 3km to go banner where Fuglsang attacked again.

 

Van Avermaet joined him while Jurgen Van Den Broeck and Mikel Nieve set off in pursuit but with 2km to go, it was back together. Bardet and Gallopin were the next to try and when that move was shut down, Nibali made his race-winning attack.