The 1984 Tour de France was a battle between reigning champion Fignon and his former team captain Hinault. Questions had been raised about the strength of Fignon's 1983 win due to Hinault's absence and Pascal Simon's withdrawal after breaking his shoulder whilst wearing the yellow jersey. Hinault won the prologue and the first two stages following the prologue were flat stages; the first of which was won by Frank Hoste in a bunch sprint with Ludo Peeters taking over as race leader. Tour organizers had made a purposeful effort to get riders from other countries outside of the traditional nations who usually make up the main field, and in stage two Ireland’s Stephen Roche and Denmark’s Kim Andersen both made the stage podium coming in just a few seconds behind stage winner Marc Madiot, as Jacques Hanegraaf claimed the yellow from Peeters going into the TTT in stage three. Over the previous five years or so the Team Time Trials would often be dominated by the Dutch TI-Raleigh squad, which was run by Peter Post as the Directeur Sportif, but there had been a rift between riders and some of them followed Post over to the new while others joined Jan Raas and Joop Zoetemelk on the new squad. Perhaps ironically in their first test competing against each other within the Tour de France the two teams tied for 2nd place at four seconds behind the Team of Fignon and Greg Lemond. The Team of Robert Millar and Pascal Simon finished 4th and Hinault’s new team had a tough day coming in 7th place, leaving Hinault out of the top 10 overall following the stage. The overall lead was still held by Hanegraaf by a single second over Adri Van Der Poel with Fignon in the best position among the proven GC contenders in 6th place at +0:13, and his teammate and Tour debutant LeMond sitting in 5th place just ten seconds off the lead. In stage four Ferdi Van Den Haute survived a solo attack to finish ahead of the peloton by over a minute to claim the stage win and in stage five a three rider breakaway made up of Paulo Ferreira, Maurice Le Guilloux and Vincent Barteau finished more than seventeen minutes ahead of the main field with Ferreira taking the stage victory and Barteau moving into the yellow jersey.