• Jonas Vingegaard responds to late Tadej Pogacar attack
• Kévin Vauquelin follows Bardet as French stage winner

Tadej Pogacar threw down the gauntlet to defending Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard, attacking in the hills ringing Bologna, to take the yellow jersey on stage two of the 2024 race.

“It was more important to test myself [than Vingegaard],” Pogacar said after taking the maillot jaune. “It’s good to be in yellow. You don’t say no to yellow.”

• Sprinter hit by heatstroke and suffered from first climb
• Bardet wins stage but host of big names also struggling

Romance is alive and well in the Tour de France, but so is chaos and suffering. As Mark Cavendish was sweating like a dog and vomiting on the climbs on the first stage from Florence to Rimini, one of the peloton’s most popular riders and great thinkers, Romain Bardet, making his final appearance in a race in which he has twice come close to winning, claimed the first yellow jersey of his career.

If Bardet was in a state of disbelief at the finish, Cavendish and his Astana Qazaqstan team were just in a state. On the ropes almost immediately, the recently knighted sprinter toiled over the numerous climbs, and also lost his Italian teammate, Michele Gazzoli, who quit after 120km of the Tour’s first stage.

• Manxman currently shares record with Eddy Merckx
• ‘I’m more ready now than I was last year’

Mark Cavendish’s final tilt at claiming a record-breaking 35th stage win at the Tour de France begins in earnest on Monday when he targets victory in the longest day of this year’s race, the 230km haul from Piacenza to Turin.

“I’m more ready now than I was last year,” Cavendish, who currently shares the record of 34 stage wins with the great Eddy Merckx, said on Friday afternoon. “I’m so happy I carried on, actually.”

Slovenian has taken over the sport since double Tour winner Vingegaard suffered horror crash in April

If the defending Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard overcomes both the lingering aftermath of a horror crash in April that hospitalised him for 12 days, and the rampant form of a seemingly invincible Tadej Pogacar, his will be one of the most remarkable wins in the race’s history.

The double Tour winner starts this year’s race, which begins in Florence on Saturday and ends in Nice on July 21 in extremis, his embattled team beset by illness and injury, his form uncertain.

• Authorities cracking down on hidden motors on bikes
• ‘This is a way to show that we really take this seriously’

The head of world cycling’s governing body has revealed his organisation will pay whistleblowers to come forward with evidence of hidden motors being used in the Tour de France and other major races. Hidden motors and electromagnetic wheels, costing about £200,000, are suspected to have been used in the professional peloton for several years.

David Lappartient, the president of the UCI, supported by the former US Homeland Security investigator Nick Raudenski, the UCI’s new head of the fight against technological fraud, is ramping up efforts to detect cheats.

• Geraint Thomas ‘super excited’ by ‘strong team’
• Tom Pidcock hoping to repeat stage win from 2022

Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Grenadiers will start the 2024 Tour de France much as they have other recent Grand Tours: hoping for the best from their nominated team leaders, but ready to call for backup from Geraint Thomas and Tom Pidcock, if needed.

With the Giro d’Italia winner Tadej Pogacar seemingly in invincible form, the years have long gone when, as Team Sky, the British squad started the world’s biggest bike race as the team to beat.