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The Tour de France’s opening weekend in Nice sent the peloton into the hills. With so many riders having crashed on Saturday there were some bruised and tender bodies dreading a difficult day with four tricky climbs to tackle.

Richard Moore, Lionel Birnie and François Thomazeau recap a day that went some way to restoring normality to this unique Tour de France.

Julian Alaphilippe, who held the race lead for a fortnight last year, is back in yellow tonight after outsprinting young Swiss Tour debutant Marc Hirschi and Britain’s Adam Yates.

We review the stage, talk about why the result suited Jumbo-Visma and Ineos Grenadiers down to the ground and wonder what this means for the rest of the Tour’s opening week.

We hear from our Tour diarists Sam Bewley, teammate of Yates at Mitchelton-Scott, and from Michael Mørkøv, whose Deceuninck-Quick Step team now has the twin jobs of defending Alaphilippe’s yellow jersey and trying to set up Sam Bennett for the stage win in Sisteron tomorrow.

iwoca became The Cycling Podcast’s title sponsors in March 2020. iwoca specialises in supporting small businesses and can lend between £1,000 and £250,000. iwoca have been accredited by the British Business Bank to offer CBILS (Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans Scheme) – the scheme is now open, so businesses can apply for a loan rather than just register interest. To find out more, go to iwoca.co.uk

Science in Sport is The Cycling Podcast’s longest-standing supporter. It’s a relationship that stretches back to the 2016 Giro d’Italia. Listeners can get 25% off Science In Sport’s range of energy drinks, bars, gels and cakes at scienceinsport.com with the code SISCP25

The next generation Wattbike Atom is supporting all our Tour de France coverage this year. The new Wattbike Atom is available from £90 per month at wattbike.com

DVinecellars has curated a selection of wines matched to the Tour de France for us. Choose from the green jersey, polka-dot jersey, yellow jersey or Grand Tour cases at https://www.dvinecellars.com/