Yellow For A Day

An icon of the sport in its own right, the yellow jersey is a prize associated with the climbers and all-rounders of the sport. However, when race organisers set a parcours that favours a flat, fast finish, sprinters have their moment. Paul Knott speaks to some of those who have grabbed the opportunity with both hands

- Paul Knott

There are a couple of reasons why Fabian Cancellara has worn the yellow jersey in five separate Tours. One of them is down to his supreme time trialling ability; the other is the tradition that, over the past 50 years, Tour de France course designers have had a tendency to favour a prologue or short time trial to kick off the three weeks of racing.

This resulted in an unbroken streak of 40 years of stages against the clock to begin the race from 1967 to 2007. This streak was broken when Alejandro Valverde was the first to take advantage of the opening massed start in 2008 from Brest to Plumelec, with victory up the Côte de Cadoudal.

It would take another five years until the pure sprinters got their chance to take the double whammy of stage victory and yellow jersey. Marcel Kittel did so on a hectic finish into Bastia, Corsica, in 2013. “It was a big honour and was a great moment, especially for a sprinter,” the German sprinter says, looking back ahead of stage one of this year’s race.

“I didn’t place extra pressure on that day compared to any of the other 21 stages, as it is just one day, but it is more a case of an extra bonus that comes with the winner of that day.”

That bonus this year fell to Quick Step’s Fernando Gaviria, as he was the first across the line into Fontenay-le-Comte.

However, this year’s race also showed the other, somewhat cruel side to that bonus — sprinters rarely hold on to yellow for more than a single day. Gaviria, a Tour debutant, surrendered the maillot jaune despite the opportunity to buck the trend on a second stage that seemed built for him to double his win record.