Prologue - History Repeating

The 2012 Tour de France kicked off as it did 8 years ago with a prologue in Liege, Belgium. And as was the case in 2004, Fabian Cancellara was victorious, taking the first yellow jersey by 7 seconds from Bradley Wiggins and Sylvain Chavanel. Promising American Tejay van Garderen finished 4^th, a performance good enough to garner the White Jersey.

Wiggins was obviously the best of the GC hopefuls finishing around 10 seconds ahead of Cadel Evans and Vincenzo Nibali and a handful ahead of Denis Menchov. I’m sure the British press will be declaring this a decisive performance from Wiggo, but for fans of Cadel I would not be too worried. Wiggo is a former pursuit Gold Medallist at the Olympics and the 6km course would have suited him perfectly. Cadel will be able to match him better over the longer time trials later in the race.

To be honest the stage went almost perfectly to script with most riders performing on expectations. World time-trial champion Tony Martin will be disappointed at a 45^th place finish but he had to change bikes which is an absolute disaster over such a short distance – his performance can be totally ignored. Peter Sagan had been spruiked pre race and similarly disappointed but he also pulled his shoes from the pedals which put paid to his chances. Hopefully he doesn’t rue the lost points in the green jersey battle later in the race.

The biggest suprise to me was Patrick Gretsch, a German who finished 7^th, just 12 seconds behind Cancellara. I’ll admit I have NFI who this guy is so he will be one to keep an eye on and learn a bit about in the early stages.

But the day belonged to Spartacus, who over the last two years has seen his title of King of the Classics slip to Phillipe Gilbert and Tom Boonen, and his dominance against the clock surpassed by Tony Martin.  The Swiss star is one of the nice guys on Tour and no one will be upset at him wearing the Yellow jersey at the first week of the tour again. Chapeau Fabian!

Yellow Jersey – Fabian Cancellara

Green Jersey – Fabian Cancellara

White Jeresy – Tejay Van Garderen

Brock McLean tweet of the day

@bazzargh - time trial (n): a cycle race where the riders set off one by one and Cancellara wins. #tdf