Tour de France - Stage 1

The 2008 Tour de France started rather differently from previous editions. Besides the mid season change of race kit design, there was no traditional prologue starts and a definite defending champion of previous edition.

Put 200 riders on the road that try to get to the front and add all those with some strong winds, you will get the usual nervous and stressful first stage of TDF. Nevertheless, The first breakaway of the day got away and built up a fairy decent time gap, until the peloton lead by Team Liqigas decided to give chase.

The finishing was a false flat, a rather final uphill surge to the line. German Stefan Schumacher launched a final kilo kamikaze attack, only to be brought back by the sharp acceleration of Team High Road-Columbia's Kim Kirchen.

Finally, newly crowned Spanish national road champion, Alejandro Valverde had a better timed last charging effort to the line and subsequently kill two birds with one stone by claiming the stage and the yellow.

As Usual, crashes are inevitable in the opening week of Grand Tour racing, among the high profile crash victims was last year's KOM winner, Juan Mauricio Soler, who ended the stage almost 3 mins behind the main bunch. It was believed that the crash could have caused a fracture to his left wrist, the same wrist he had broken while riding in this year's Giro.