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.
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