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Hopes for an Irish stage victory and a first yellow jersey in 33 years fell short on the streets of Nice on Saturday afternoon, as Sam Bennett desperately finished fourth in the final sprint group down the fast Promenade des Anglais .
The Carrick-on-Suir driver seemed to have given himself every chance of victory by taking his position to the left of the goal, but it was UAE-Team Emirates’ Kristoff Alexander who gave the decisive push from the right, a quarter stage victory for the Norwegian driver.
Trek-Segafredo’s Pedersen Mads came in second, Team Sunweb’s Bol Cees in third, and then came Deceuninck Quick-Step’s Bennett, all finished in the same time of three hours 46 minutes and 33 seconds.
As expected, it came down to a group sprint, and a stacked one. Bennett, wearing his green shamrock jersey as the current Irish road champion, was looking to become the sixth Irish rider in the 107 editions of the Tour de France to win a stage.
A crash with 2.9km to go downed half the peloton, including Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche, though they quickly reassembled and since the crash occurred just within the last 3km they were given the same time as the top ranked.
After a tense and anxious stage 1, covering 156km around Nice, Alexander used his moment to perfection, hitting the front just a few meters from the line. At 29, Bennett had made no secret of his desire to become the fourth Irish rider to wear yellow, starting with Shay Elliott in 1963 and then Roche in 1987, who wore yellow three times, Sean Kelly being the only other rider. Irishman at that exclusive yellow club, and that was just for one day in 1983.
The three scenic loops around the city, two short and one long, included climbing the Côte de Rimiez before the finish line on the fast Promenade des Anglais. With road conditions in the middle of the race going from bad to worse and then back again, the peloton effectively self-neutralized the race down the final hills at Levens, and continued at that cautionary pace for a distance in the later 40 km and at the finish line in the city. with the road and then dry again.
Dozens of riders ended up out of their clips, some slower to get back on their bikes than others. Several of the top contenders, including Julian Alaphillipe and Tom Dumoulin, spent time chasing after hugging the roads early on.
After three stage victories at the 2018 Giro d’Italia and two more at the 2019 Vuelta a España, Bennett himself was left out of his clips after just 52 minutes into the race, coming out down the stretch, but there’s a better chance that that happens. stage victory to come.
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