An emotional stage 2 victory was claimed by Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) on Sunday in the 2021 Tour de France, as he picked up eight bonus seconds and moved into the yellow jersey for the first time in his career.
Crossing the line atop Mûr-de-Bretagne, he saluted his late grandfather, Raymond Poulidor, who had finished second in the Tour three times but never donned the maillot jaune.
On each of the two passes up the Mûr, Van der Poel attacked - the first time with 16.7km to go but he was caught two kilometres later. Then with 700 metres to go, he blasted up the climb to ride away from all the other favourites, followed in second by Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) going third and Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) in fifth.
Van der Poel was awash with smiles of glory, now six seconds ahead of Alaphilippe in the general classification.
Watch the stage 2 race highlights in the video above.
