John Degenkolb’s tears of joy were the best part of a Tour de France stage that had everything

The hardest Tour de France cobblestone stage in more than 30 years did not disappoint. Crashed yellow jersey contenders littered the dust-covered course. In the end, John Degenkolb took the stage at the line over Greg Van Avermaet and Yves Lampaert for an emotional victory, but that hardly tells the whole story of the stage.

Here’s what you need to know from the wildest day of the Tour so far.

Porte was perhaps the favorite to win the Tour de France behind Chris Froome. He is a brilliant all-around rider, someone who was expected to excel in the mountains and the late individual time trial that could ultimately decide the yellow jersey.

Unfortunately, as sure as Porte’s skillset is, so is his terrible luck when riding grand tours. He crashed out of the 2017 Tour, too — on Stage 9, no less — when he fell hard on a sharp descent. On Sunday, he was taken out much more innocuously. Just a few kilometers into the stage — and on flat, paved ground — Porte suffered an apparent collarbone injury and was reduced to tears.

Though it retained the yellow jersey, BMC Racing had an awful day. Tejay Van Garderen, who was well situated in the general classification to become the team leader with Porte out, was knocked out of contention by a string of crashes and mechanical issues. Van Avermaet is still having a fantastic Tour, but Sunday effectively ended BMC’s hopes of wearing yellow in Paris.

Almost everyone who could plausibly win the yellow jersey had to spend time off the bike. Perhaps no one was as snakebitten as Frenchman Romain Bardet, who could not keep from suffering punctures.

Disaster seemed to strike with roughly five kilometers to go. Bardet needed yet another wheel change as the peloton was picking up speed, putting him 500 meters back. Luckily for him, teammate Oliver Naesen was in an approaching group and the two were able to just latch on to the bunch finish that featured Froome, Vincenzo Nibali, Nairo Quintana, Tom Dumoulin, Adam Yates, and others, losing just seven seconds.

Mikel Landa finished with Bardet. He suffered an odd crash on a non-cobble stretch of a road while he was eating with one hand on his bike with the 30 kilometers to go. He appeared to hit a bad divot in road and collapsed to the ground, taking out one other rider with him and tattering his kit.

Rigoberto Uran was much less lucky. He took a hard fall shortly after Landa’s, but he was unable to keep pace with the peloton, finishing one minute and 55 seconds back of Degenkolb in what may be the end of the yellow jersey hopes for the man who finished second in the Tour de France last year.

The German rider was incredibly emotional after the stage, calling the feeling of winning the stage “pure happiness.”

Degenkolb was involved in a horrific crash in 2016 during a training session when he and five other riders were struck head on by a car in Spain. The accident was bad enough that, for a time, it was uncertain whether Degenkolb could every fully come back to race at an elite level. During the interview, he also mentioned that he was riding for a close friend who had passed away recently, someone who was “like a father” to him.

Degenkolb is a brilliant all-around rider. His win was gutsy. After seemingly putting himself in poor position at the front of a train leading Van Avermaet and Lampaert, Degenkolb had no choice but to gun for the line. His rivals had no answer, leaving Degenkolb to cross the line first for the best stage win of the Tour so far.