Plastic bottle nearly causes Tour de France chaos

A REMARKABLE piece of reflex riding by German Marcus Burghardt has saved the Tour de France from a catastrophic fall.

Cadel Evans

A REMARKABLE piece of reflex riding by German Marcus Burghardt has saved the Tour de France from a catastrophic fall - and possibly Cadel Evans's title defence.

Burghardt and BMC teammate George Hincapie were driving the peloton late on the first stage when confronted with a stray plastic bottle on a downhill section.

Burghardt clipped the bottle at full speed, knocking it to the side of the road.

"Had a scary moment on today's final 15km when I hit the water bottle in the downhill on 60km/k," the German tweeted.

"Good job by Phil (Gilbert) and Cadel today."

Burghardt's manoeuvre sent shudders through a nervous peloton on a day blighted by several prangs.

Australian Michael Rogers was a victim, falling with 25km to go before managing to drag himself back up to an admirable 22nd place.

"Crash number 1 out of the way," he tweeted.

"Donated some skin to the Belgian road system. Was lucky to get back to the front before the final climb.

"Lucky me gets to scrub my wounds with this iodine brush."

Others were not as fortunate.

World time trial champion Tony Martin and Spaniard Luis Leon Sanchez both have wrist injuries after separate falls.

Other Australian riders commented on the dangerous nature of the stage.

Baden Cooke tweeted: "Happy to have stayed out of the crashes today. Good to see @mattgoss1986 stretching his legs in the intermediate sprint."

Simon Gerrans tweeted: "Happy to get through stage 1 with all my skin, a lot of the bunch can't say the same thing... Good work by all the @Orica_GreenEDGE boys!"

Orica-GreenEDGE director Matt White said Goss's effort to beat Mark Cavendish, Mark Renshaw and Andre Greipel in the first intermediate sprint was outstanding.

"The intermediate sprint was also a pleasing sign, to pick up some points ahead of the other key sprinters," White said.

"But (Peter) Sagan is a big danger.

"If he can win stage three, everyone will be playing catch-up.

"I still think with his age, there's a little bit of a question mark for three weeks.

"He's only done one Grand Tour before, so at 22, it's a lot of pressure for three weeks.

"He was always the favourite to win today, but it's a long Tour de France.

"He's one of the contenders, for sure, but he has some weaknesses."

White said Goss has plenty of opposition for the green jersey apart from Sagan.

"It showed," he said.

"There are a lot more guys chasing that green jersey than they would allude to before the start of the race.

"Whatever they've said in the past doesn't really mean anything now, because you wouldn't be doing intermediate sprints for nothing.

"Every point is going to matter in the end.

"You don't want to be playing catchup."

Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara owns both the yellow and green jerseys.

Of the  established sprinters, Sagan has 49 points from Edvald Boasson Hagen (42), Goss (9), Cavendish (8), Greipel (7) and Renshaw (6).