S8 Ep98: Tour de France stage two: Nice – Nice

The Cycling Podcast

The Tour de France’s opening weekend in Nice sent the peloton into the hills. With so many riders having crashed on Saturday there were some bruised and tender bodies dreading a difficult day with four tricky climbs to tackle.

Richard Moore, Lionel Birnie and François Thomazeau recap a day that went some way to restoring normality to this unique Tour de France.

Julian Alaphilippe, who held the race lead for a fortnight last year, is back in yellow tonight after outsprinting young Swiss Tour debutant Marc Hirschi and Britain’s Adam Yates.

We review the stage, talk about why the result suited Jumbo-Visma and Ineos Grenadiers down to the ground and wonder what this means for the rest of the Tour’s opening week.

We hear from our Tour diarists Sam Bewley, teammate of Yates at Mitchelton-Scott, and from Michael Mørkøv, whose Deceuninck-Quick Step team now has the twin jobs of defending Alaphilippe’s yellow jersey and trying to set up Sam Bennett for the stage win in Sisteron tomorrow.

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