The Tour de France doesn’t tend to offer much in the way of forgiveness. On Saturday, it offered none at all to Remco Evenepoel or Soudal-Quick Step.
Stage 1 into Lille looked, on paper, like a straightforward sprint day. But with 17 kilometers to go, a crosswind split the bunch, driven on by Visma-Lease a Bike. Quick-Step found themselves on the wrong side of it. By the finish, Evenepoel lost 39 seconds to rivals Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard. So did Tim Merlier, ending the team’s stage ambitions before the sprint ever unfolded.
“We came here for a sprint victory and not to lose time,” said a clearly displeased team CEO Jurgen Foré, speaking to reporter Chris Marshall-Bell. “And we don’t have both, so that’s what was not supposed to happen.”
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