With her eyes on the green sprinter's jersey for the fastest of the fast, Alex Manly (BikeExchange-Jayco) focused on picking up points in the intermediate sprints before a 17th-placed finish in the stage overall.
"The crowd was absolutely amazing," Manly said, describing her first lap around the iconic Champs-Élysées.
"Ruby (Roseman-Gannon) helped set up the intermediate sprints really well," she added. "The last lap I got caught a couple of times with some crashes and I just had to stop-start a bit too many times.
"I thought I was coming back and then chose the wrong way and just got a bit boxed and just didn’t have the legs to stop-start one more time."
Manly sits fourth in the points classification after the opening stage, and is aiming at riding consistently throughout the Tour in her hunt for the green jersey. The BikeExchange-Jayco team are also backing her to go for the stage win tonight and tomorrow, with the uphill finishes suiting Manly well.
Tiffany Cromwell (Canyon//SRAM) was the first Australian across the line in 11th.
Unlike many of the riders, Cromwell described the racing as calm. Or at least, calmer than expected.
"I thought it was going to be more sketchy, but it was fast," Cromwell said.
"The final was elbows out."
The experienced rider is captaining her team and was more concerned about managing overall time losses than the outright time for the stage.
Cromwell finished one place ahead of Alex Manly (BikeExchange-Jayco), who also has her eyes on the sprinter's jersey.
National road racing champion Nicole Frain finished in a respectable 12th position on the day, as she explained a funny reason as to why she was not taken in by the spectacle of racing upon the Champs-Élysées.
"I was actually thinking about how sore my hands were getting," she said, laughing.
"There were some of the GC riders around so I was just following wheels and I think that's probably what they were doing as well.
"That finish - I didn't think on the second-last lap that I would hold my position out there but I think I rolled in for 12th or something, so no complaints from that. That's pretty sick.
"But now, the real racing starts."
Frain and the other Aussie riders will now look to stage two - an undulating sprint stage of 135 kilometres which makes its way from the French countryside to Provins.
Watch Stage 2 from 10:15pm (AEST) on the SBS SKODA Tour Tracker. The SBS and SBS On Demand broadcast starts at 10:30pm (AEST).
