Romain Bardet wins the first stage of and wins the first yellow jersey of the 2024 Tour de France.  

The 206km one from Florence to Rimini is immediately challenging, with a breakaway that manages to take around a 5' lead; Ryan Gibbons , Matej Mohoric , Valentin Madouas are in attack. Ion Izagirre , Frank Van Den Broek and Jonas Abrahamsen, as EF starts to pull ahead of the main group .

However, leading sprinters such as Gaviria , Groenewegen , Philipsen and Kristoff lose contact, while Mark Cavendish struggles even more and with 80 km to go he is around 15 minutes behind the breakaways.  

As the kilometers go by, Mathieu Van der Poel also loses contact with the main group, while with fifty minutes to go from the end, the fugitives have only a 1'30" advantage over the main group in which, among the sprinters, only Mads Pedersen remains caught up, as well as to Wout Van Aert.  

Only Madouas and Abrahamsen remain in the lead and Bardet takes a lead from the main group on the San Leo climb.  

On the Montemaggio climb, two remain in the lead; Bardet and Van den Broek who catch up and overtake Madouas and Abrahamsen and then launch downhill towards the finish line in Rimini.

Good action by the men of Team DSM who, despite the group's comeback, managed to reach the finish line, with Bardet wearing the yellow jersey and ahead of his teammate Van den Brouke at the finish line.

Van Aert finishes third and wins the peloton sprint ahead of Pogacar and Van Gils .

ARRIVAL ORDER:

1 BARDET Romain Team dsm-firmenich

2 VAN DEN BROEK Frank Team dsm-firmenich,,

3 VAN AERT Wout Team Visma | Lease a Bike 0:05

4 POGAČAR Tadej UAE Team Emirates ,,

5 VAN GILS Maxim Dstny Lot,,

6 ARANBURU Alex Movistar Team ,,

7 PEDERSEN Mads Lidl - Trek ,,

8 EVENEPOEL Remco Soudal Quick-Step ,,

9 BILBAO Skin Bahrain - Victorious ,,

10 BETTIOL Alberto EF Education - EasyPost ,,

Photo: Sprint Cycling Agency