Stage 2 Tour de France 2014 report: Nibali wins in Sheffield
6th July 2014
A tough day in Yorkshire and Derbyshire on Stage 2 of the 2014
Tour de France saw Vincenzo Nibali of Astana win by 2 seconds in
Sheffield.
The riders rolled out of York, and as soon as the flag went down, a break of seven riders went out, which included Cyril Lemoine. They were ahead through Knaresborough and Harrogate, and on the day's first climb, the Côte de Blubberhouses. Lemoine took the single King of the Mountains point on that climb, and further points on the early climbs, so he finished the day in the overall lead in that competition, with six points.
Around 60,000 people cheered on the riders on the Côte de Holme Moss, the most significant climb on the stage.
A series of sharp climbs in Sheffield thinned the peloton down to an elite group, and there were a number of attacks on the final steep climb, Jenkin Road. Contador led part of the way up Jenkin Road, then Froome accelerated to go over the top in first place.
Vincenzo Nibali launched an attack with 1.9km to go, and the other riders looked at each other and hesitated. Nobody wanted to chase, because Peter Sagan was in the lead group, and would have won a sprint. Nibali held on to win, and take the yellow jersey.
Twenty riders crossed the line 2 seconds behind Nibali, including most of the favourites - Talansky, Bauke Mollema, Contador, Valverde, Van Garderen, and Froome. Sagan was fourth on the day, and now leads the green jersey competition.
As expected, Marcel Kittel was unable to stay with the pace, and lost his yellow jersey. According to CyclingNews, he said, 'I had a good time on the bike. The fans were incredible, there are no words for that and it was an awesome day. I was in front and there were so many people I just yelled at them to be even louder pretending like I couldn't hear them. I thought I lost my hearing.'