Yesterday’s Stage 2 of the Tour de France saw Tinkoff’s Peter Sagan win in Cherbourg and take the yellow jersey after a tough finale that included the climb of the Cote de la Glacerie – and this video from Strava shows the progress of four of the riders up that tough climb.
Around one in six of the competitors on this year’s race are uploading their data to the ride-sharing network, and it was BMC Racing’s Greg Van Avermaet, eighth on the stage, who is the new holder of the Strava KOM on what, in the battle for the Tour de France polka-dot jersey, was an unclassified ascent.
One of the four riders featured in the video is his team mate, Marcus Burghardt. While Van Avermaet headed off to battle for the stage win, the Swiss rider looked to help team leader Richie Porte, who punctured 5km out.
Porte, who described the flat as “a disaster,” lost 1 minute 45 seconds to most of his rivals. He said: “Marcus Burghardt came back but when you are going that fast there’s not much you can do in terms of a bike change.
“It all just happened so quickly that by the time Burghardt came back the bunch was gone anyhow.”
Van Avermaet’s KOM earns him our pick as Strava Tour de France rider of the day, and as the race progresses, we’ll single out similar standout performances on each stage.
Here is who the classification leaders are based solely on those who have been uploading their data to Strava, with their official placing afterwards in brackets.
Overall: Greg Van Avermaet, BMC Racing (6)
Points: Jasper Stuyven, Trek Segafredo (13)
Mountains: Jasper Stuyven, Trek Segafredo (1)
Young rider: Wilco Keldermann, LottoNL-Jumbo (3)
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