Umbrellas sold like hot cakes during the prologue of the Tour de France in Rotterdam on Saturday. And as the rain continued to pour, visitors dressed for more summery weather sheltered under bridges and clustered under official yellow tour brollies while they waited for the cyclists to pass one by one during the time trials.

Fears that the poor weather might keep the punters away, however, were unfounded, as half a million people turned out to see the port city host the Netherlands’ fourth start of the Tour de France and third major foreign cycling event within the space of a year. After last summer’s Tour of Spain, the Vuelta, in Drente and last spring’s Tour of Italy, the Giro d’Italia, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands is becoming accustomed to organising large sporting events on its soil. And the Dutch have set their sights high as they are also hoping to host the 2018 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics.

Paris is very far away
Saturday’s 8,9 kilometre prologue took the cyclists across the River Maas twice and past many of the city’s architectural highlights. Many of the high-rise buildings sported quotes by Dutch cycling heroes. The Netherlands' second ever Tour winner Joop Zoetemelk’s “Paris is very far away” couldn’t have been more true, as huge signs on office buildings pointing in the direction of the French capital read “Paris 3,642 kilometres” – which it is if you take the long way round.

Early on in the competition, German cyclist Tony Martin put himself in first position and managed to hold on to the fastest time until almost the end. He was beaten by ten seconds by Swiss Fabian Cancellara.

Jokes that Cancellara’s bike must be motorised appeared to have been taken seriously as his was one of the bikes to go through an x-ray just in case. Inadvertently fuelling preconceived ideas that the Tour is dogged with deceit, Cancellara dismissed the idea, “It’s my legs, I am the motor”. Britain’s David Millar came in ten seconds later to take third place, just ahead of Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour champion from the US.

Lead pack
Luckily the sun came out in all its glory for Le Grand Départ on Sunday. Again tens of thousands lined the route out of the city towards the Province of Zeeland.

Before leaving Rotterdam, Dutchman Lars Boom broke away from the group, taking with him Belgian Maarten Wynants and Spaniard Perez Lezaun in an attempt to defy cycling law. With 220 kilometres between him and the finish in Brussels, the early breakaway attempt was destined to fail. Nevertheless, the leading group soon picked up six minutes on the rest and managed to hold on to much of the lead until the Belgian border.

If it had not been for a loose dog, a sharp bend and a mass fall blocking the way for almost all the cyclists, the result may have been very different. But veteran Italian racing cyclist Alessandro Petacchi managed to steer gracefully past all these obstacles and finish first in Brussels.

There was an audible sigh of relief once the Tour caravan left Rotterdam and the event had proven not only to be a success, but also passed without incident. Tour director Christian Prudhomme concluded, “Rotterdam has organised everything fantastically.”