Gallery
The First of Many
I always enjoy the opportunity to have the title of a piece of artwork to have more than one meaning. Today, this title refers to this summit of the Col de Portet d'Aspet is the first of many big climbs for the stage, but it also makes reference to the simple fact that these are the first of many more competitors that will be passing this point over the next half hour. And of course the final inference is that this is the first of many more paintings to come for both the stage and the rest of the Tour de France. Georg Preidler (Giant Alpecin) was the first to summit closely followed by Jeremy Roy (FDJ), Lieuwe Westra (Astana). The trio had jumped out of the rather large breakaway of another 19 riders. With so many hard categorized climbs on the course, each and everyone of the escapees felt that today was the day that the peloton would let the break succeed.