With fresh drugs stories surfacing on the first day of the race, the 2010 Tour De France kicked off with a short race against the clock, before the riders journeyed down to Burgundy over the course of the next seven days. Only 197 riders lined up as Xavier Florencio of Cervelo Test Team was suspended at the last minute for medical reasons.

Prologue – Saturday 3 July

8.9km Rotterdam to Rotterdam

Traditionally, the Tour de France starts with a short Time Trial in order to get some time gaps in the field and decide the first Yellow Jersey holder of the race. The course in Rotterdam looked good, it was flat, the highest points on the bridges of the famous port were only 16m higher than the lowest points, and there were few tricky corners. With baking 30 degree sunshine, it was expected that we may see somebody break Chris Boardman's sixteen year old record for the fasted Prologue, at 55.152km/h

While most riders were just looking to get this over with, two sets of people were aiming for good rides. The first were the Prologue specialists, men like Fabian Cancellara and David Millar, who were looking for a stage win and a few days in the yellow jersey. The people in overall race contention like Contador and Lance Armstrong will be hoping to gain a few seconds on their rivals. Many eyes were on Britain's Bradley Wiggins. He had won the Prologue of the Giro and backed by a Team Sky who do not believe in leaving anything to chance. Wiggins was entitled to leave the start gate fourth from last, based on this finish in the 2009 Tour. As forecasts suggested that the rain showers would hit the later riders, he opted to start early.

Any thoughts of a record breaking stage were hit when the rain came early. White lines and nearly slick thin tyres to not mix well and a couple of riders found themselves on the floor.

The early pace was set by the German Tony Martin riding for Team HTC-Columbia. He was the eleventh rider out of the gate and set a time of 10 minutes 10 seconds. Sky's Geraint Thomas came though only 13 seconds behind. Tyler Farrar, 18 seconds back, made a good showing for a sprinter.

Wiggins was the first big name rider to come though the finish and he had gone for risk management, losing 46 seconds on Martin, but staying upright.

The rain continued and as the afternoon went on, it became clear that Martin's time would be the time to beat. Favourite after favourite finished without beating the young German. Was he going to add a German stage win to compliment the German football team thrashing the Argentineans in the World Cup?

Into the last hour and there were anxious moments as David Millar came through but even he was ten seconds off Martin. Martin's girlfriend had appeared at the finish to comfort him during his nervous wait. Andy Schleck was not as successful, missing Martin's mark by almost a minute.

The last three riders on the road were the big guns. Armstrong had won prologues before and he wanted to show that he would not go out with a whimper in his last tour. Cancellara was the man most people expected to win today, now the roads were drying a bit, could he finally topple Tony Martin? Last to start was the reigning champion, Contador. Armstrong blasted past the half way time check only a few seconds behind Martin, but previous riders had shown that the second half is where the time was lost. Cancellara, the perfect mix of power and bike handling was the first person to beat Martin's half way time. Known to many as Sparticus, such is his dominance against the clock, Tour Organisers are scanning bikes after the stage because people are convinced he has an electric motor in his bike. Contador passed the half way mark behind Cancellara, but also a second behind Armstrong.

Armstrong passed the finish in third place, behind Martin and Millar, but ahead of all his General Classification rivals. Over 150 riders had finished after Martin, but it was only Cancellara who could top him, the Swiss World and Olympic champion taking ten seconds out of Martin. Contador came in sixth at the finish, behind Armstrong, but gaining time on many of his challengers.

Cancellara finished with a time of ten minutes exactly taking the stage and yellow jersey. Martin was ten seconds behind and should ride in the White Jersey for best young rider. Millar was twenty seconds back and list likely to ride in the Green Jersey of the Points Classification leader¹. The first of the overall contenders was Armstrong at 22 seconds back, a second ahead of Thomas and five ahead of Contador. Sprinter, Tyler Farrar was 29 behind.

Of the other big names, Levi Leipheimer was best, 28 seconds down in eighth. Michael Rodgers was 35 seconds back in 14th, one second and three places ahead of Klöden. Alexandre Vinokourov was a further two seconds and two places behind. Cadel Evans was 23rd, 39 seconds behind. In 70th place was Carlos Sastre, 54 seconds behind, a second ahead of Ivan Basso. On 56 seconds were Denis Menchov and Bradley Wiggins. Frank Schleck was another second behind them. Christian Vandevelde was a minute back, but Andy Schleck was now in 122nd position, 69 seconds back. Manuel Cardoso is the last man of the race, having crashed, he now lies over six minutes behind the leader.

Stage 1 – Sunday 4 July

224km – Rotterdam to Brussels

The first road race stage of the Tour is when the real racing begins. The overall contenders will try and keep out of trouble as the sprinters and their helpers look to control the day. On the roads into Brussels, it is likely that some attacks will sprout out of the main field; some people will be hoping for a stage win, others just want to get their sponsors some television time. It is predicted that the coastal winds will cause havoc like they did last year. On that day, the big winners were Mark Cavendish and his Columbia Team. Could they do it again? If Cavendish is on form, then he probably can. On Independence Day, the American sprinter on the American Garmin Team, Tyler Farrar, would be looking for a win, hoping that time bonuses could move him towards the Yellow Jersey as a bonus.

Sad news is that the two riders who crashed on the Prologue retired overnight with broken bones.

The stage route leaves Rotterdam heading west. It sticks to the coast, crossing over the polders of Zeeland before turning inland and heading into Belgium. It passes through the port of Antwerp and on to Brussels where the French flag is flying over the Atomium. Like yesterday, there are no climbs on the route, so we still will not have a King of the Mountains Jersey holder after this day. The high point of the stage is 38 meters above sea level at Meise, the home of the Greatest Cyclist of all time, Eddie Mercx. The last 30km features both wide straight roads and narrow cobbled streets. At 2km to go there is a tight hairpin at the bottom of a sharp decent. By this time, the bunch should be at full speed aiming for the finish, so who knows what will happen there.

Soon after the start of the race, three riders broke away. These were Maarten Wynants, a Belgian rider on the Belgian Quickstep team, Lars Boom, a Dutchman on the Dutch Rabobank squad, and Alan Pérez on the all Basque Euskaltel-Euskadi team. It was an odd move from the Basque boys in orange who are never normally seen until the mountains. With Wynants and Boom riding in home territory, the lead exploded to over 7 minutes.

Huge crowds were out on the ride of the road. Unfortunately, in large gatherings of sports fans, there are always idiots. Somebody had brought a dog along and not put it on a lead. The resulting crash took out a number of riders including David Millar, Ivan Basso and Levi Leipheimer. Spectators were popping onto the road just as riders were approaching and even in the sections with crowd barriers the riders were narrowly avoiding making contact with cameras and hands. On the whole, however, the size of the crowds was a huge shot in the arm for the sport².

The teams let the three escapees hang in front of the race for most of the stage. Only in the last 35km, when all the teams of the sprinters moved to the front to make sure they were not caught out by a wind change, did they start rapidly pulling back the group. At 30km to go, the gap was now 30 seconds. This gap was enough for the Moldovan Road Race Champion, Alex Pliuschin of Katusha to jump across to Wynants who had exploded off the front of the Boom group. The pair increased their lead on the field to 51 seconds at the 20km to go mark.

At the front of the main group, Rabobank, Milram, Lampre, Columbia, Garmin and even Sky were helping set the pace. The lead dropped from 33 seconds at 12km to 14 seconds at 10km. The pair were caught at 8.5km to go. Wynants had spent 215km (134 miles) in the lead of the race. He was to finish, along with Boom, who had also blown all his energy, over three minutes behind the main field.

The leadout trains of the sprinters were competing for position on the road. One moment Lampre were leading, the next Columbia were at the front. Lampre were working for Alessandro Petacchi, the former fastest man on two wheels. Milram had Gerald Ciolek, the German youngster and Rabobank were working for the three times World Champion, Óscar Freire.

At the hairpin, there was carnage at the front. A crash involving Freire, Cavendish and Jeremy Hunt took out two of the leading contenders for the stage and lead to mass confusion. The Columbia train carried on until it realised that Cavendish was on the floor back down the road. The Garmin train surged past, lead by David Millar in the Green Jersey. Then another crash, somewhere in the midfield completely blocked the road and caused the Yellow Jersey holder, Cancellara to end up over his handlebars.

Up front, 30 riders were now clear, contesting the stage. Then another crash which led to AG2R-La Mondiale's Lloyd Mondory on the ground, waving angrily as his bike vanished up the road attached to the back of Tyler Farrar's own bike! Farrar was obviously out of the running as well.

In the end, the old master, Petacchi was a clear winner ahead of Mark Renshaw, Cavendish's lead out man who took points of the rest of the Manxman's Green Jersey rivals. Thor Hushovd of Cervelo came third with Robbie McEwen in fourth. It was Petacchi's first Tour de France stage win since 2003 and only the fifth in a career that has seen him grab 168 victories.

All though who crash in the last 3km are awarded the time of the group they were with, so none of the crashes effected the race overall. This was fortunate for riders like Tony Martin who crossed the line after Wynants and Boom but lost no time on Cancellara.

Petacchi becomes the new wearer of the Green Jersey.

Stage 2 – Monday 5 July

224km –Brussels to Spa

The second of the tricky opening triumvirate of stages to the Tour saw the riders stay within Belgium and head into the hills of the Ardennes. It would leave the flat lands half way through the stage and would end with the first six climbs of the Tour. The first three of these were category 4 climbs, the last three were category 3. The last two, the Col de Stockeu and the Col de Rosier are regulars on the Liège-Bastogne- Liège classic and well known to the riders. They were both narrow climbs with tricky descents. To make matters worse, these were within miles of the town of Spa, which as every fan of motor racing knows, is exceptionally susceptible to rain showers.

With the hard climbs at the end, it was liable that many of the sprinters would not make it to the stage in the front group, but it could look good for Thor Hushovd to increase his advantage over Cavendish in the Green Jersey competition.

The attacks started early, and break of the day formed on 17km, started by Sylvain Chavanel of Quickstep, it included his teammate Jérôme Pineau, Omega Pharma Lotto's Matty Lloyd and Jurgen Roelandts, Sébastien Turgot (BBox Bouygues Telecom), Marcus Burghardt (BMC Racing), Rein Taaramäe (Cofidis) and Francesco Gavazzi (Lampre).

The group stayed away long enough for Pineau to take the first three climbs of the day and for Roelandts to take the first sprint. The roads were now wet and it was raining at the finish. With 52km to go, the gap was 1 minute 25 seconds and coming down. Jens Voigt and the Saxo Bank team were chasing down the break to keep their man, Cancellara in yellow. Pineau led across the Côte d'Aissomont, with the front group splintering. The main field were less than a minute behind

Well aware that the roads get narrower from here on in, and that one crash can block the road, all the big contenders were trying to stay up near the front of the main group. Not an easy place to stay as everybody wants to be in the same place!

Chavanel made his break from the leading group chasing down Jurgen Roelandts on the Stockeu. As the rest of the group fell back into the main field, HTC- Columbia's Maxime Monfort broke away from the peloton. He was followed by Amets Txurruka of Euskaltel-Euskadi, last year's most aggressive rider³.

Chavanel soon dropped Roelandts and was first over the Stockeu. On the descent, the race exploded. After one rider fell, many others tried to avoid him and the bikes and fell off, many fell off twice. Armstrong and Wiggins were affected, but were soon up and chasing. The Schleck brothers came off worse and for a time it looked like Andy had broken his collarbone. Even worse were Garmin's Christian Vandevelde and Tyler Farrar, who both looked extremely beaten up.

While Chavanel was powering off towards the finish, Cancellara had to watch his Yellow Jersey ride way from him. If he was to hang onto his Jersey until France, he needed to keep Chavanel to around a minute in front, but on days like this, the bigger picture came first. He was still upright and leading the chase, but the two race favourites from his team were somewhere behind him. He chose to slow his group down to allow the rest of the favourites to catch up. Cadel Evans, who was one of the big name riders not to have fallen could of attacked here to gain time, but didn't. At 25 km to go, Chavanel was 80 seconds ahead of the Yellow Jersey group and 4 minutes 22 seconds ahead of the Schleck group, that was being paced back by Voigt

Chavanel had spent part of this season in a coma after fracturing his skull in the Liège-Bastogne- Liège, now he was heading to a win on those same roads. Behind him, the two chasers were at 39 seconds, the Yellow Jersey group were 2:10 down, Armstrong and the main field were 2:34 and Schleck was another minute back.

By 14km to go, the three main groups had joined up, but there were still riders like Vandevelde somewhere behind them. The field seemed unwilling to chase the Leader, maintaining a pace that allowed Chavanel to finish on dry roads nearly four minutes ahead of the bunch.

With Cavendish, Petacchi and Ciolek not with the main pack and Farrar struggling with injuries further back, this would have been the ideal time for Hushovd, who had been at the front all the time, and other sprinters to claim more Green Jersey Points. Cancellara had other ideas, he arranged for the race to be neutralised, and that no points would be awarded for riders at the finish except for Chavanel and the riders from the break. The bunch then rolled into the finish in protest. Sadly for Monfort, he was caught within meters of the finish. It was an odd sight. It isn't unusual for a lone rider to be swept up by a fast moving field at the finish, but the field were barely ticking over and Monfort was unable to summon the power to keep ahead.

Hushovd and Robbie McEwen finished as near to the front as possible, in the vain hope that points may be awarded afterall.

Cavendish, Petacchi and Ciolek arrived with Vandevelde nearly ten minutes behind. Farrar was over nineteen back from the winner. Both Garmin riders were taken to hospital.

Hushovd was so angry he had to be hidden away from the press. His point, echoed by many onlookers was that crashes are part of racing and it was unfair that the race was not true run to the end. He also couldn't see why Cancellara, just another rider at the end of the day, was allowed to call this protest. Wiggins was also not happy with the go slow. Millar had called the stage Carnage in his Tour diary, describing it as one of the worse riding days of his career.

Most of the riders had ridden these roads, or roads like them before and the race route has been around for a year. If they were protesting over the route, then surly they should have done something about before the stage. Narrow, damp, Belgian roads are as much a part of cycling as wide Boulevards and mountain passes. At the end of the day, the riders once again forgot that it is the spectators who make this sport so popular and make sponsors want to get involved. Instead, they gave the large crowd at the finish who were expecting something exciting, a damp squib.

Chavanel, the hero of the day, will wear the Yellow Jersey back into this native France tomorrow. He is clear of the field by nearly three minutes. This team are Belgian, so they would be ecstatic on winning in their home county. Thanks to Cancellara and the protest, he also takes the Green Jersey, but Petacchi, second in the classification will carry on wearing it. In a post race turnaround, the race organisers decided to combine all the points for the first 25 people over the line, except for Chavanel, then split them equally. This meant that everybody from 2nd to 25th got 2 points. Pineau becomes the first King of the Mountains leader of the Tour.

Stage 3 – Tuesday 6 July

213km –Wanze to Arenberg Porte du Hainaut

On the third day of one of the toughest starts to a Tour in recent memory, the riders would finally leave Belgium behind them and take on French roads. They would be riding through the ancient Comté de Hainaut, which spans part of Belgium and northern France and is not to be confused with the London Borough⁴.

Sunday's planned hazard was the wind, Monday's was the hills, but today's main hazards were man-made, the notorious Pavé. These are 13km of narrow cobbled roads that are normally used for the Hell of the North, the Paris-Roubaix Classic race. The Spring Classic uses 50km cobbled sections, so in a manner of speaking, the riders were getting off lightly. The dangers of the cobbles are many. The road is narrower and the riders move around looking for the best, smoothest line. This can mean riders hitting each other in the sections. The rough roads cause havoc with tyres, not only quick punctures, but shards of flint with gradually dig into the rubber. The bumps drain your legs and can cause blisters on your hand with all the bouncing. On top of this, the roads are very dusty, and if there is any rain, the slippery cobbles will get covered in mud, as will the riders. Even in the dry, the riders will likely be caked in dust, especially if they have to follow cars of a lot of other riders. Cobbles were not the only hazards. Normal Belgian roads have large gaps running down the middle between the two blocks of surface, these gaps, Death Valleys are the perfect size to trap a racing bike tyre. On top of this, there was a strong wind blowing, and as the route circled around to the finish looking for bits of cobbles, the wind could turn from a headwind to a tailwind to a cross wind.

The bikes today were slightly different from normal bikes, with a few added extras to cushion the riders.

Most eyes were looking towards Cancellara for this stage, he has twice won the Paris-Roubaix so goes well over the cobbles. His team, however, may require him to do a different job, to try and break Contador, who isn't as found of the Pavé as other surfaces. The question was, could Andy Schleck keep up with him, on a surface that he wasn't fond of either. Armstrong likes cobbles and his Radioshack team, like Schleck's Saxo Bank, had identified this as a stage to attack Contador and his supposedly weak Astana team.

It was revealed that Vandevelde had ridden the last part of yesterday's stage with broken ribs and doesn't start today.

At least the stage started predicably, there was an early break which managed to build a reasonable read. It contained Steve Cummings (Team Sky), Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Transitions), Pavel Brutt (Katusha), Pierre Rolland (Bbox Bouygues Telecom), Roger Kluge (Milram), Stéphane Auge (Cofidis) and Imanol Erviti (Caisse d'Epargne).

The first cobbles section appeared at Ormeignies, after nearly 130km in the saddle. It'd be fair to say that not much happened in the stage until that point except for the breakaway who were just under two minutes ahead. Approaching the cobbled sections, the teams of the main riders were on the front of the peloton, trying to keep the pace high so they would keep their men at the front and nobody from the back could easily reach the front. The field was stretched out to 300m or so. As soon as the roads narrowed enough for these teams to blockage the road, the pace slowed and the bunch grouped back up. The first section was only 350m long and based without too much complaint.

There was now a 40km run to the next set of cobbles. The gap had grown to the leaders though the cobbles as a small group does not have to jostle for space on the road, so moves through quicker. The gap stood at 2'34" with 78km to go but with Voigt of Saxo Bank on the front, the gap closed to just over a minute before the next cobbles. Behind the field, Cavendish was having mechanical problems, but he made it back to the main field safely.

The section of pave at Hollain, 46km to go, was 1200m long and up front Hesjedal tried to use it to jump away from the group. Behind, in the field, a few riders ended up upside down in a hedge, these included Britain's Charlie Wegelius and former Giro winner Damiano Cunego. The next set of cobbles came just a few kilometres later at Rongy. This was a wide stretch of only 700m and caused little difficulty. Just after the village of Rongy, the field found themselves on the right side of the French Border. The work of the Saxo-bank team was splitting the main field apart, but Contador was still up with them.

The gap was down to 21 seconds at the start of the fourth set of cobbles, at Sars-et-Rosières, with 28km to go. This section was 2400 meters long and British track star Cummings tried to use it to get away, but was overhauled by Hesjedal. The Canadian started his lone bid for glory. Behind him, the race was falling apart. Frank Schleck had taken a tumble and was lying in a ditch. He had been near the front of the field, so the crash disrupted almost everybody. At the front of the peleton, Cancellara was given the word to go, and he put his head down with Andy Schleck in tow. Also hanging onto Spartacus were World Champion Cadel Evans, British Champion Geraint Thomas, and the Norwegian Champion, Thor Hushovd.

Behind them was a group of riders including Armstrong and Mick Rodgers. Further back again were Bradley Wiggins and Alberto Contador. It looked like the Spainiard was having the problems that everybody had predicted.

By 17km to go, the Contador group had ridden up to the back of the Armstrong group. At 14km to go, The Group of Champions was 38 seconds behind Hesjedal, some more chasers were at 1'05" and Contador was at 1'54". It was obvious that now the biggest weapon in Schleck's armoury was Cancellara, he was producing one of those performances that make some loony people believe that his bike had an electric motor, speeding though villages, past fields and over cobbles leading his team leader and a select few.

Behind him, the cobbles were causing havoc, Chavanel, having brought the Yellow Jersey back to his homeland had to change his bike a couple of times, the time loss even greater because team cars were also struggling to fit down the narrow roads. Armstrong also lost time with mechanical problems, luckily he had Popovych to help pace him along the stage. Contador was now with Wiggins, Denis Menchov and Nicholas Roche, son of 1987 winner Stephen. Contador still had one teammate with him, Vinokourov, who was powering his group along just like Cancellara in front.

With 8.5km to go, and Armstrong being nearly a minute behind Contador, he pulled away from Popovych, using his remaining strength to try and ride up to the next group on the road, wherever they were. At this point, the race was spread over the French countryside, it wasn't clear to many people who were where. Hesjedal was almost forgotten at the head of the race, until he was caught with 6.5km to go.

He managed to hang onto the back of the Group of Champions and even launched the first attack for the line, but was unable to fight the headwind. Although Thomas tried, he proved no match for the God of Thunder, Thor taking the stage that Cancellara's protest denied him yesterday. Thomas finished second, ahead of Evans.

Vinokourov was powering the next group towards the finish hoping to limit the time that Contador lost to Schleck and Evans, and make the biggest gains on Armstrong. There was only one problem with this; Contador had dropped off the back of the Group. Van Summeren pipped Wiggins to the line, 53 seconds behind the winner. Contador was another twenty seconds behind.

Robbie McEwen, the Austrialian sprinter, led in the next group that included Roman Kreuziger and David Millar, they were at 1'46". Armstrong followed arrived in the same group as Cavendish, Petacchi and Ciolek, 2' 08" back, the American crossing the line in 32nd place. His teammates were further back, Kloden and Leipheimer had also had mechanical problems and arrived with Popovych at 2'25". Tony Martin, the White Jersey holder arrived with this group too.

The Yellow Jersey arrived in 95th position, 3' 58" down. Wegelius and Cunego were over 17 minutes behind, putting an end to the latter's challenge for the race win.

Thanks to his selfless work for his teammate, Cancellara regained the Yellow Jersey, glossing over the apparent contradiction with yesterday, in that it seemed okay to race when other people were crashing as long as it benefits your team. Thomas moves into Second Place, and takes over the lead in the White Jersey Competition. Evans, once again returning to his old tactic of hanging onto the back wheel of the fastest guy out there, moves up to third in the race. Hesjedal jumped to fourth place, 46 seconds behind the leader. Chavanel is in fifth, just over a minute behind. Hushovd moves higher up the leader board and takes over the Green Jersey, now leading from Thomas.

So who were the winners and who were the losers? On the face of it, the big winner was Andy Schleck, who gained time on everybody who can threaten him in the mountains. He has, however, lost his best teammate in the mountains, as well as a great source of mental support. Evans has also gained time on the rest of the big names. Thomas finds himself with a Tour Jersey, a high placing in the race and people talking up his chances in the mountains. He has been in the right place at the right time for the past four days which shows a canny rider.

Despite his problems at the end, Contador should be happy. It was expected that he would lose big time to Armstrong and Schleck here. He is only 30 seconds back from the Saxo Bank climber, a time he can easily make up in the hills or in the final time trial. He is also 40 seconds ahead of Armstrong, who by his own admittance had a bad day. Tony Martin has dropped away from the top twenty, now 21st. Wiggins remains in a strong position, loosing time only to Evans and Schleck amongst the big names. Denis Menchov has kept his challenge in good stead, although it isn't until the mountains that he usually throws it away. Millar has dropped a few places but on the whole had a good day. Cavendish on the other hand, had a poor day. True, he finished well up, not loosing much time, but that isn't what he is racing for. Hushovd has won the two big sprints and has opened up a big lead in the Green Jersey competition. Although he probably didn't know it at the time, he did pick up his first point of the race, with a 25th place finish, making the gap to Hushovd only 62 points! On the bright side, he hasn't been beaten in a sprint yet. Chavanel was the big looser, he was expected to retain the Yellow Jersey until the Alps, but tyre problems put pay to that.

Huge crowds were out again today and were treated to a race that more than made up for the finish of the day before. As well as wondering what possibly could happen next, cycling fans were left wondering if every sport could be made more exciting by adding stretches of cobblestones.