page_title: 1971 Tour de France
section_title: Vosges, Belgium and north-west
hierarchical_section_title: 1971 Tour de France / Race overview / Vosges, Belgium and north-west
caption_attribution_description: English: Col du Firstplan: Pass summit Deutsch: Col du Firstplan: Passhöhe
context_page_description: The 1971 Tour de France was the 58th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The 3,608-kilometre race consisted of 22 stages, including three split stages, starting in Mulhouse on 26 June and finishing at the Vélodrome de Vincennes in Paris on 18 July. There were three time trial stages and two rest days. Eddy Merckx of the Molteni team won the overall general classification, defending his title to win his third Tour de France in a row. Joop Zoetemelk finished second, 9:51 minutes behind, and Lucien Van Impe was third, just over 11 minutes in arrears.
  Pre-race favourite Merckx took the first yellow jersey as general classification leader after his team won the prologue stage's team time trial. Merckx's teammate Rini Wagtmans unknowingly took the Tour lead after the second of stage 1's three split stages, before returning it to his leader by the end of the day. The leading positions of the general classification became clearer after stage 2 when a sixteen-strong breakaway group of mostly pre-race favourites ended with a margin of over nine minutes.
context_section_description: With 100 km (62 mi) remaining of stage 2, Zoetemelk led climbing specialists Lucien Van Impe and José Manuel Fuente (Kas–Kaskol) with attack on a depleted peloton over the summit of the second-category rated Vosges climb of Col du Firstplan. A Merckx move brought back the attackers on the descent, which saw the formation of an elite sixteen-rider breakaway group that included all the pre-race favourites, except for Joaquim Agostinho and Lucien Aimar. In gale-force winds, the leaders reached speeds of 60 km/h (37 mph) on the flat terrain, ending with a nine-and-a-half-minute advantage over the peloton at the finish in Strasbourg. On the wet cinder track of Stade Tivoli, Herman Van Springel led-out teammate Merckx to victory in a frantic sprint finish with Roger De Vlaeminck of Flandria–Mars. The points gained by De Vlaeminck put him in the green jersey. The fifteen riders that ended in the breakaway now held an advantage of close to nine minutes in the general classification. Of those competing for the overall prize, they were unreservedly now the leader of their team, halting any uncertainty over hierarchy.
  Stage 3 headed west to Nancy for another cinder track finish, where Wagtmans took a sprint win from the ten-man breakaway. The following day the Tour ended in Marche-en-Famenne for its overnight stay in Belgium. With 43 km (27 mi) of the 242 km (150 mi) remaining, a duo of Jean-Pierre Genet (Fagor–Mercier–Hutchinson) and José Gómez Lucas (Werner) escaped the peloton, who, on the straight slightly uphill finish, they managed to hold off by a distance of 20 m (66 ft) at the line, which was crossed by Genet first.
  Stage 5 featured two iconic locations of one-day "monument" races, the short steep sett-paved climb Muur van Geraardsbergen of the Tour of Flanders and the stage finish of Roubaix Velodrome, likewise used in Paris–Roubaix. With 73 km (45 mi) remaining, the crowds lining the Geraardsbergen witnessed the valiant breakaway of Agostinho, together with the uncooperative Jos Huysmans (Molteni). The pair were caught, before another break moved clear. The group of five reached the banked velodrome over a minute ahead of the peloton, and Pietro Guerra of Salvarani won the stage in a sprint with Huysmans's teammate Julien Stevens.
  The two-legged stage 6 was raced over a total distance of 261 km (162 mi), as the Tour reached the channel coast at Le Touquet. In the first part, Leman claimed a second stage win of the race in a bunch sprint at Amiens's Hippodrome du petit Saint-Jean dirt racecourse. Mauro Simonetti of Ferretti won the second part on Le Touquet's promenade from a six-rider breakaway, only seconds ahead of the encroaching peloton. The Tour's first rest day was spent in the resort of Le Touquet. The fifteen riders that profited on stage 2 still led the general classification, with Merckx holding a 26-second advantage over Van Springel, and De Vlaeminck a further 11 down in third place.
caption: In stage 2, the Col du Firstplan [fr] aided in the formation of a sixteen-strong[a] breakaway group of mostly pre-race favourites who finished with a margin of over nine minutes.
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