Tour de France stage two prediction

Free cycling tips, best bets and analysis for stage two of the Tour de France 2021 on Sunday

Where to watch

ITV4 & Eurosport, 12.15pm, Sunday

Stage preview

Julian Alaphilippe served notice to his rivals with an astounding attack to win Saturday's opening stage of the Tour de France and may well double up on Sunday.

As ever, the first day of the Tour was a nervy affair with two significant crashes, the second of which ripped through the peloton 8km from the finish.

Deceuninck-QuickStep's Alaphilippe had himself gone down early on but after warning his rivals that he'd studied the stage into Landerneau, showed no ill-effects as he and his world champion's rainbow jersey burst off the front with 2.3km to go on the Cote de la Fosse aux Loups.

Primoz Roglic, who eventually finished four seconds ahead of his GC rivals, Mathieu van der Poel and Pierre Latour, tried to bite back on the Wolf Pit climb. However, Alaphilippe gave them nothing and with bonus time factored in, sits 12 seconds clear on the general classification after becoming the first Frenchman since 2001 to win the opening stage.

Sunday sees the peloton remain in Brittany as they head south from Perros-Guirec to the Mur-de-Bretagne Guerledan, featuring 183.5km of racing on a stage with a similar profile to the opening day.

The group will climb the Mur twice, first ascending it with 15km to go before returning for the finish.

Dan Martin won here in 2018 and could be a value shot having taken a stage at May's Giro d'Italia. After a quiet Saturday, the Israel Start-Up Nation rider may well be planning something for Sunday.

That said, on this form, it almost feels unrealistic to see anyone getting close to Alaphilippe.

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