🎥 Girmay, Van Gils, and Godon crash hard early in Stage 2 of the Tour de France

We’ve already seen quite a few crashes in the team time trial, with major crashes in the Bahrain Victorious, Groupama-FDJ, and XDS Astana camps. But during the first road stage, it didn’t take long before we saw quite a few riders hit the ground. In the nervous opening phase, eight riders were lying on the asphalt.

While three riders were pulling ahead, we saw a battle unfolding behind them to make the move up to the lead group. It caused some tension, which ultimately led to a nasty crash. Right at the front, near the guardrails, things went wrong: about seven riders were involved, but it’s a miracle that more didn’t go down.

The biggest names involved were Biniam Girmay and Dorian Godon. The Eritrean rider from NSN was back on his feet quickly and gave the motorbike a thumbs-up a moment later: everything was okay. The French rider from Netcompany INEOS was clearly having some trouble with his elbow and had to see the race doctor. Others weren’t so lucky.

Maxim Van Gils (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Anthon Charmig (Uno-X Mobility), Kelland O'Brien (Jayco AlUla), Aaron Gate (XDS Astana), Silvan Dillier (Alpecin-Premier Tech), and Robbe Dhondt (Picnic PostNL) remained on the side of the road for a while. The Belgian rider mentioned last, in particular, remained on the ground for a long time. A disappointing debut for the youngster.

Gate, who is also making his debut late in his career, had fallen on his face and, with his head badly bloodied, had to see the doctor as well.