BASTIA, Corsica – Riders at the Tour de France know to expect the unexpected. But nothing could have prepared them for the mayhem that turned Saturday’s first stage of the 100th Tour into a demolition derby on two wheels.

Seemingly for the first time at the 110-year-old race, one of the big buses that carry the teams around France when they’re not on their bikes got stuck at the finish line, literally wedged under scaffolding, unable to move. The timing couldn’t have been worse: The blockage happened as the speeding peloton was racing for home, less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) out.

Fearing the worst — a possible collision between 198 riders and the bus — race organizers made the split-second decision to shorten the race. Word went out to riders over their radios and they adapted tactics accordingly, cranking up their speed another notch to be first to the new line, now 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) closer than originally planned.

Then, somewhat miraculously, the bus for the Orica Greenedge team wriggled free. So organizers reverted to Plan A. Again over the radios, word went out to by-now confused riders and teams that the race would finish as first intended — on a long straightaway alongside the Mediterranean, where an expectant crowd waited to cheer the first stage winner of the 100th Tour.

Then, bam! Two riders collided and one of them went down, setting off a chain of spills that scythed through the pack.

And this was just Day One. The bad news for riders: They’ve still got another 20 stages and 3,191 more kilometers (1,982 miles) to survive to the finish in Paris.

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Keeping his head and riding his luck amid the chaos, Marcel Kittel sprinted for the win, claiming the first yellow jersey.

“It feels like I have gold on my shoulders,” said the German rider for the Argos-Shimano team.

The 22 teams know that the first days of any Tour are tough. Everyone is nervous, full of energy and jostling for position. Adding to the stress this year is the start in Corsica. The island’s winding and often narrow roads that snake along idyllic coastlines and over jagged mountains are superbly telegenic but a worry for race favorites — the likes of Chris Froome and two-time former champion Alberto Contador — because a fall or big loss of time here could ruin their Tour before it really begins.

Froome survived Day One more or less unscathed. Contador didn’t. The Spaniard, back at the Tour after a doping ban that cost him his 2010 victory, crossed the line grimacing in pain, his left shoulder cut and bruised. He was tangled in the crash that threw about 20 riders to the tarmac. Contador said he’ll be sore for a few days, “but I still have enough time to recover.”

Even for the Tour, which has seen more than its fair share of dramas in 99 previous editions, Saturday’s calamitous chain of events was exceptional.

“We’ve never had to change the finish line before,” said Jean-Francois Pescheux, the event director who helps pick the route each year. “There’s never been a bus stuck before.”

Because of what Pescheux called “the little bout of panic and crashes,” organizers decided to give everyone the same time as Kittel — 4 hours, 56 minutes and 52 seconds over the 213-kilometer (132-mile) trek.

“It’s clear there was a moment of panic, and that’s why we put everybody on equal footing,” said Pescheux.

 


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