Fabio Jakobsen (QuickStep Alpha Vinyl) has completed his dream comeback from a life-threatening crash less than two years ago by winning the first road stage of the 2022 Tour de France. The finale was marred by crashes, with Wout van Aert (Jumbo Visma) placing 2nd on the stage again and assuming the yellow jersey.
The big news in the finale was a crash just inside the final 3km, which blocked the road and saw many riders caught out, including Tour defending champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), who also suffered a puncture as he was off the back.
However, all of those riders got the same time as the small group sprinting for victory as they were inside 3km to go when the incident occurred. Similarly, a large group of riders caught out by crashes just before or on the major bridge in the final 20km also managed to get back on in the finale of the 202km stage into Nyborg, Denmark.
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Their success in getting back into the bunch was mainly thanks to Rigoberto Urán's EF Education-EasyPost team. They chased for almost 15km and made the catch despite the commissaires pulling the team cars out so the chasing riders could not use them for shelter.
Yesterday's surprise stage 1 TT winner, Yves Lampaert (QuickStep Alpha Vinyl) was also among the fallers in another crash on the bridge. However, while Urán and his team mates were well over one minute back at one point, Lampaert was quickly back on his bike and soon returned to the group without such a long effort.
In the final sprint, Van Aert (Jumbo Visma) went early, as did Mads Pedersen (Trek Segafredo). But it was Jakobsen (QuickStep Alpha Vinyl) who managed his effort to perfection; coming through late to pip Van Aert on the line.
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Pedersen placed 3rd while Danny van Poppel (Bora-hansgrohe) claimed 4th with Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Fenix) and Peter Sagan (TotalEnergies) were 5th and 6th.
Van Aert, now with two 2nd places from the first two stages, leads the race overall from Lampaert by just one second, with Pogačar still 3rd at eight seconds. Van Aert also holds the green jersey while Pogačar leads the best young rider classification.
Magnus Cort (EF Education-EasyPost) gave the host nation something to cheer when he attacked from the start line and rode in the four-rider breakaway; winning all three climbers' primes and taking the lead in that classification.
