The 1994 edition of the Tour de France began with a brief prologue around the city of Lille. Englishman Chris Boardman set a blistering pace on the course en route to winning the stage by fifteen seconds over the second-place finisher Miguel Indurain. Stage 1 was a relatively flat stage that came down to a bunch sprint that was marred by a large crash. As the riders were sprinting to the finish line, a policeman leaned out to take a photograph causing Wilfried Nelissen to slam on his brakes and crash into the policeman while also taking out Laurent Jalabert in the process. Djamolidine Abdoujaparov ultimately won the stage while Jalabert and Nelissen were forced to drop out of the race due to the injuries they had sustained.