Our Tour Expert David Millar

“Why was there was no safety fencing? There should have been some padding”

After the opening weekend of the Tour de France we’ve certainly seen plenty of action and a lot of crashes. Every rider is different and every crash is different but time trial crashes tend to be the worst because they are big impacts, they are at high speed and there is little warning because it’s your fault. In a peloton you can usually rub off a bit of speed.

You saw two guys out after stage one, from eight guys that crashed. Then Luke Durbridge (Orica-scott) packed in on Sunday’s stage. The only saving grace is it’s wet so you get to slide a lot more, with fewer abrasions, but at the same time you can slide into solid objects.

When the organisers knew a week out that it was going to be raining on the course, I have to ask why there was no safety fencing other than the metal barrier. There should have been some padding. This is the marquee event of cycling, it’s a TT, it’s controllable and you should know that when it rains there will be two or three points that really need it. The UCI should have some regulations in place. You also had to feel a bit sorry for Tony Martin placing fourth in the opening time trial. Everyone would have loved to have seen him do it. He has been part of that German generation that has paid the price for the previous generation’s mistakes. He hit his stride as Jan Ullrich was caught doping and German TV pulled out of the Tour. He has been doing it 10 years, won four World Championships and not been fêted in his own country.

But the bottom line is he got beaten fair and square. He got through the technical section with the fastest time or equal and then he lost it in the final fast section. It was a dragstrip there and G [Geraint Thomas] totally outstripped him.

We probably shouldn’t write G off with regards to GC as well. We’ve been semijoking about it, but there is no reason why you couldn’t have Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Simon Yates as the top three. They were the three best of the main GC contenders after the first weekend. That’s a legitimate Tour de France podium. It’s bonkers.