Adam Yates pips twin Simon to Tour de France stage one win and yellow jersey

Adam Yates outlasted his twin brother, Simon, in the final metres to win the Tour de France’s opening stage and take the yellow jersey after the British pair – who ride for different teams – launched an incredible late break on stage one of the Tour de France.

After a breakaway was caught with 50km to go, Adam (UAE Team Emirates) and Simon (Team Jayco-Ulala) made an extraordinary break, working together to open a gap on a chasing group that included last year’s champion, Jonas Vingegaard and his general classification rival, Tadej Pogacar.

The early five-man breakaway made up of Pascal Eenkhorn (Lotto-Dstny), Lilian Calméjane (Intermarché), Simon Guglielmi (Arkea), Jonas Gregaard (Uno-X) and Valentin Ferron (TotalEnergies) was never really give much rope by the peloton, kept within 1min 40sec of the main group.

The most interest in the early part of the stage came from the riders seeking to get their hands on the King of the Mountains’ polka dot jersey, with Eenkhorn taking three out of four points from the first two categorised climbs. Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) would claim that prize by coming over the top of Côte de Vivero first.

The racing really caught alight on that category two climb as UAE Team Emirates brought Tadej Pogacar to the front, where he was joined by Vingegaard and perennial stage hunter Julian Alaphilippe in an early sign of things to come.

There was disaster further back for Richard Carapaz, EF Education-EasyPost’s leader, and Movistar’s general classification hope, Enric Mas, who both hit the deck. Mas was forced to withdraw and while Carapaz got back on the bike, he later slipped away from the main group to see his GC chances all but disappear.

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