TOUR DE FRANCE: During the opening stages of the Tour, the favourites repeat like a mantra the need for constant vigilance. Those who wonder why when the roads hold nothing more threatening than might be found in southern England need only contemplate yesterday's opener, a great loop around the Duchy. Relatively innocuous, it looked on paper, and destined for a blanket finish.

Rip up the script. Crashes are what the Tour favourites fear, and yesterday they ended the hopes of France's only faint prospect of winning this Tour, Christophe Moreau. A goatee-bearded survivor of the 1998 Festina debacle, Moreau had finished fourth in 2000, and wore the yellow jersey last year, which qualified him as the nation's flag-carrier. His tricolour looks sadly tattered now.

Moreau's first chute entailed a lengthy chase back to the field for him and six of his domestiques on the Credit Agricole team. It was followed by a bike change, as his gears had been damaged, and a second chase. When he hit the tarmac for the second time, it was clear when he got up that his heart was no longer in it. His deficit at the finish was only three minutes, but the damage to his morale looked irreparable.

The other great danger early in the Tour is the hill which is unexpectedly steep or narrow and takes the field by surprise. Yesterday's was the Cote de Wormeldange, a vicious little climb followed by a narrow, 45 m.p.h. descent through the vineyards to the banks of the Moselle. Over the hill nine men went clear, simply because they were handily placed at the front of the field to follow a searing effort from Belgium's stage winner of last year, Rik Verbrugghe.

It may mean nothing later on in this Tour, but the nine included those with the highest ambitions, who yesterday had some of the freshest legs and minds: Lance Armstrong, resplendent in the yellow jersey which he won in Saturday's opening time trial; last year's fourth man overall, the Kazakh Andrei Kivilev; the 2000 King of the Mountains from Colombia Santiago Botero, widely tipped as one of the few who will worry Armstrong; last year's Australian discovery Bradley McGee, and, encouragingly for British hopes, David Millar.

For a few moments, alarm bells rang among the teams who had not had the presence of mind to cover the move, principally the ONCE squad of last year's third-placed Joseba Beloki. The panic was brief, the chase vicious, but the names of those frontrunners should be noted.

Yesterday, the teams of the two strongest sprinters, Telekom for Erik Zabel and Lotto-Adecco for Robbie McEwen, stitched up the finish almost to perfection, but then a baby-faced Swiss-Italian called Rubens Bertogliati foiled them all. On the little drag between the kilometre-to-go flag and the turn into the finish straight he whizzed out of the field. From the ideal position a dozen places behind Telekom's grinding domestiques, he flew past too rapidly for them to respond, and managed to hang on for a stage win as unexpected as it was richly deserved.

He did not know it, but when he sprang away, he was racing for the yellow jersey. The white jersey of best young rider is also his, at the expense of Millar. His tenure, however, may be brief as the Tour enters Germany today, and Erik Zabel will be all too aware that any of the bonuses on offer at the finish and at the intermediate sprints could enable him to win yellow in his homeland. Zabel lies 10th this morning, just 10 seconds behind Bertogliatti.

Stage One (Luxembourg to Luxembourg,192.5kms):

1, R Bertogliati, right, (Swi) Lampre Daikin 4hrs 49mins 16secs;

2, E Zabel (Ger) Team Deutsche Telekom;

3, R McEwen (Aus) Lotto-Adecco;

4, F Baldato (Ita) Fassa Bortolo;

5, O Freire (Spa) Mapei-Quick Step;

6, S O'Grady (Aus) Credit Agricole;

7, L Brochard (Fra) Jean Delatour;

8, D Frigo (Ita) Tacconi Sport; 9, J Enrique Gutierrez (Spa) Kelme-Costa Blanca;10, F Simon (Fra) Bonjour. Overall Classification: 1, R Bertogliati (Swi) Lampre Daikin 4hrs 58mins 21secs; 2, L Jalabert (Fra) CSC-Tiscali; 3, L Armstrong (US) US Postal Service both at 0.03secs; 4, R Rumsas (Ltu) Lampre Daikin at 0.06; 5, S Botero (Col) Kelme-Costa Blanca at 0.07; 6, D Millar (Brit) Cofidis at 0.08; 7 L Brochard (Fra) J Delatour at 0.09; 8 E Zabel (Ger).