Gallery
No Less of a Victory TDF21-20
Some may discredit Tim Merlier's (Alpecin-Fenix) win today since two of the biggest names in sprinting were laying on the ground behind. I am not one of those. If he had not already been ahead of those two he would have crashed as well, so it may be true that he was going to take the stage regardless. Behind his victory salute, his teammate Jasper Philipsen was looking to make sure that Nacer Bouhanni (Arkea-Samsic) didn't get a bike lunge victory while his sprinter was celebrating. Behind the top three finishers came Davide Ballerini (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Victorious), Mathieu Van Der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) and then Julian Alphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step).
This was the first day were none of the leaders' jerseys changed hands, however due to multiple crashes many slipped down (and some up) the leader board in the quest for overall victory in Paris.