Germany's Marcel Kittel won the second stage of the Tour de France with a commanding sprint finish while three-time champion Chris Froome managed to finish in the main pack after falling to the pavement in a mass crash.
Australia's Richie Porte was also brought down in the crash but was quickly back on his bike, while Froome took a little while longer to catch up.
Froome's Sky teammate Geraint Thomas also came down in the incident but held on to the leader's yellow jersey.
All three were near the front of the peloton when a Katusha rider ahead of them lost control coming around a sharp turn with about 30 kilometres to go.
Porte said he hurt his knee in the incident and is 47 seconds down on Thomas going into stage three.
"I came out of the crash ok but there were a few guys that went down a lot harder. It was a stressful day," Porte said.
"It was the first real stage of the Tour and then you get the rain, then it dries up, and then starts raining again.
"It was a nice one to come through and it's nice to get the first crash out of the way and get on with it. Hopefully my knee is ok, I have a little bit of a bang on that, but I'm looking forward to tomorrow."
Froome's shorts and several layers of skin were torn and he had to change bikes as three teammates paced him back to the peloton - he said he felt the crash was unavoidable and also escaped without any major problems.
"No injuries, thankfully," Froome said.
"I just lost a little bit of skin on my backside, but yeah, that's the nature of the race, we knew there were slippery conditions.
"Every time you put the race numbers on you know there's a big risk something could happen and today just a touch of wheels or someone just slid a few wheels ahead of me and at those speeds you just can't avoid it."
In winning the bunched sprint to the line Kittel managed to hold off Arnaud Demare and Andre Greipel while Australia's Michael Matthews finished ninth on the stage.
The stage win gave Kittel the green jersey, with Matthews in 10th in the sprinters classifications - he is also the highest-ranked Australian overall at 20 seconds behind Thomas with young Australian rider Damien Howson also ahead of Porte at 43 seconds down.
Stage three of the tour will take the race 212.5 kilometres from Verveirs to Longwy
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