Tour de France: Norwegian Thor Hushovd was the surprise winner of the time trial prologue when the Tour de France, shorn of its pre-race favourites, began under a doping cloud today.
The Credit Agricole rider set a time of eight minutes 17 seconds on the 7.1km flat course along the wide avenues of the host city of the European parliament.
George Hincapie, who became the new leader of the Discovery Channel team after seven-times winner Lance Armstrong retired last year, was less than a second behind after being last down the starting ramp.
Another American, David Zabriskie (CSS), had to content himself with third place, four seconds adrift of Hushovd.
The American rider, who defeated Lance Armstrong by two seconds in last year's Tour prologue and won the Dauphine Libere's opening short time trial last June, was regarded as the hot favourite.
Sebastian Lang of Germany was fourth and Spain's Alejandro Valverde fifth.
Hushovd is one of the best sprinters in the peloton but is not regarded as a time trial specialist. He admitted he was surprised by his performance.
"I never thought I could win the prologue," he said. "I knew I had done a lot of progress against the clock but I never thought it would be enough."
David Millar, winner of the 2000 Tour prologue who was making his return to action after a two-year doping ban, was happy with 17th place, 15 seconds behind Hushovd.
"I thought I would never race again but a year ago I decided I would come back and I did it," said the Briton. "It's a dream come true. I'm very happy."
Hushovd will wear the race leader's yellow jersey during Sunday's 184.5-km first road stage around Strasbourg but his leadership should be short-lived.
His win confirmed the 2006 Tour could be the most open race for years after Armstrong's retirement and the withdrawal of the two main pretenders to succeed the American, Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso.
The German, winner of the Tour in 1997, and the Italian, champion at the last Giro d'Italia, were swept away by a doping tidal wave on the eve of the start of the race. The top five from the 2005 race have either retired or been withdrawn.
Seven other riders and a whole team, Astana-Wuerth, were implicated in a doping investigation in Spain and had to pull out. The peloton was reduced from 21 to 20 teams and from 189 to 176 riders.
The first indications of the new Tour hierarchy will probably come after the seventh stage, a 52km individual time trial, on July 8th.