The official results and standings from the TdF site: Stage 1.
Take-aways on Day 1:
–Fabian Cancellara is, as third-place finisher Bradley Wiggins said, the man.
–Alberto Contador, in second, is also a man. Even a man to be reckoned with, as Liggett/Sherwen would say.
–Astana placed four in the top 10: Contador, Andreas Klöden, Levi Leipheimer, and Lance Armstrong. What does that quartet have in common? They can all climb. If the team stays intact–out of crashes and away from injuries or other mishaps–it’s going to be a gang fight in the mountains.
–Unofficially, Armstrong won the battle today for the first TdF rider to tweet post-race. He was just ahead of Mick Rogers, Leipheimer, Wiggins, and Cadel Evans.
I will depart from tradition and register no complaints with the Versus coverage of the stage. Well, here’s one small thing: It always surprises me on the run-in to the time-trial finishes that the lads can’t give a more precise idea of how far out the riders are. I mean, the course is marked. And they have 180 riders to practice on. Instead, LiggWen get in a lather with their guesstimates of finishing times and you never know exactly whether the guys are 500 meters from the finish or 100.