Tour de France - Advantage Jumbo-Visma as Primoz Roglic shows who's the boss

Race favourite Primoz Roglic underlined his credentials as the patron of the peloton and man to beat in the battle for yellow after avoiding any trouble and enforcing the neutralisation in a chaotic opening stage of the Tour.

German veteran Tony Martin, the road captain of Roglic's Jumbo-Visma team, had already come to the front of the nervous pack and used the experience of his 11 Tours de France to call a halt to proceedings on the final slippery descent of what proved to be a dramatic stage around the hills of the French Riviera.

But when Astana failed to take heed and increased the tempo on the dangerous downhill, they were only left with egg on their face when Colombia's Miguel Angel Lopez, third in line of the Astana train, locked up his wheels and aquaplaned through a bend before slamming head first into a road sign.

Roglic had clearly seen enough. The kind of rider who would normally revel on these kinds of twisting descents, the 30-year-old Slovenian caught up with Astana's Omar Fraile and gave the Spaniard a dressing down. Enough was enough. The other riders of the peloton hadn't trained the extra two months and endured the Covid-19 lockdown only to see all their efforts get crushed in the opening four hours of the Tour.

To prove just how perilous the conditions were, even when Astana were subsequently called to heel and the remainder of the descent was played out in neutralised slow motion, it was still slippery enough for Roglic's teammate George Bennett to lose his back wheel and skid on a road marking before hitting the deck hard.

Martin stopped to come to the aid of the New Zealander – and for a short while it looked pretty serious. But Bennett, thankfully, was able to get back on his bike and battle back to the peloton before the curtain was lifted with 20km remaining and the race for opening-day spoils kick-started.

Others were not so lucky. Spare a thought for the younger of two Tour debutants for the Ineos Grenadiers. Pavel Sivakov's race was barely a couple of hours old when he took a tumble when drizzle turned to downpour.

The 23-year-old had almost managed to rejoin the peloton when he hit the deck hard in the race convoy, landing heavily on his other side, tearing his shorts and ripping up his left elbow.

For any cyclist, riding the Tour de France should be the pinnacle of one's ambition. So to have such a rotten first taste of the race – especially after being selected in place of a former winner – must have been a bitter pill to swallow for Sivakov. You could tell as much by the way he screamed in frustration to his directeur sportif Gabriel Rasch – and that was even before his second, worse tumble.

Having ridden a superb Dauphiné to make the eight-man Ineos Grenadiers selection, Sivakov now finds himself more than 13 minutes down after a baptism of fire. He was not the only Ineos rider to suffer, with Costa Rican Andrey Amador – another late addition to the team – also in the wars.

Egan Bernal, the defending champion, may have kept himself out of trouble – finishing safely alongside teammate Richard Carapaz in the pack – but early knocks to two of his key mountain lieutenants would have dented morale at the Ineos camp.

The hosts will also have reason to despair – the two riders who lit up last year's Tour, Julian Alaphilippe and Thibaut Pinot, both experienced days they will want to forget.

After a crash on a descent with over 100km remaining, Alaphilippe had to fight back on his own for quite some time after a lengthy mechanical. He had only just regained contact when the peloton was split again following a pile-up on the home straight ahead of the intermediate sprint.

To then be caught up in the final pile-up just inside the 3km mark was a cruel end to an already testing day. Having himself stayed out of trouble, Pinot came down hard on his shoulder in the fall and finished, surrounded by morose Groupama-FDJ teammates, more than four minutes down on surprise stage winner Alexander Kristoff of Norway.

The anger on his face may have been a more positive sign than pain or anguish – but picking up a knock so early on, even if he was awarded the same time as his rivals owing to the three-kilometre rule, will be a setback.

Which is why Roglic will be counting his lucky stars. The Slovenian champion, who won the Vuelta last year, crashed heavily in the Dauphiné and was still showing the signs of his injuries in a bandaged left elbow. It was paramount for his chances of winning yellow that he kept out of trouble and did not acerbate any lingering pain.

But he did more than that. By calling out Astana, Roglic underlined his status as the boss of the bunch, the patron of the peloton. To do that displays the confidence and swagger required to win the Tour. And while putting down this marker, he will have seen his rivals falter around him.

Richie Porte, Mikel Landa, Dan Martin, Nairo Quintana, Fabio Aru – they all were held up or were involved in spills, along with Lopez, Pinot, Alaphilippe, Sivakov and Amador. The knock to Kiwi climber Bennett will be a concern, but Roglic himself emerged unscathed from a hectic opening day and will take a slender psychological advantage going into Sunday's mountainous second stage.

Thankfully for everyone concerned, the weather forecast is for sunshine and high temperatures. It's a parcours ideally suited to the Slovenian, who could well find himself in the maillot jaune on Sunday evening while his rivals are still licking their wounds.