Gustav Erik Larsson led the Agritubel team over the line in 6'40, as the first team to complete the course. My Control team were comfortably slower at 7'45 but Ben Swift and Martin Tjalingii led Barloworld into the lead at 6'32.
Wiesenhof could only get 3rd at 6'44 and the 6man Volksbank team went a further 3 seconds slower than them. Tinkoff were temporarily third with 6'43 before Swedish champ Lindgren led his Colombian Une Orbitel team to 2nd at 6'37.
Even with Fumiyuki Beppy, Nippo struggled and 6'53 is the worst of the teams so far (Not including me). Jason Donald gave one last push for Slipstream as they crossed the line in 1st! 6'28 beating Barloworld by 2 seconds and Jens Voigt's Landbouwkredit could not beat it, taking 6'35. PCMdaily-Jobs.com will this time be composed of 5 Iranians and 2 Qatarians, as expected they posted an unimpressive 6'49 - somehow beating Nippo!
HealthNet went 5th with 6'40 - an impressive time considering their weak TT lineup. 6'37 for Panaria was the same time as Une Orbitel but Panaria were slightly quicker and took 4th. Aussie TT Champ Ben Day was unable to aide his Aussie team to a win, 6'46 was enough for 10th at the moment.
DFL came with a strong team and took a very good time of 6'32, to take 2nd. Marco Polo followed them home with 6'45, taking 11th. Are Slipstream beatable?
Designa Kokken finished next and as the bookies favourites, expected to do well with Sebastien Lang in their squad. They took 4th with 6'34. Benfica go 8th with 6'39 while Continental leaders Maxbo Bianchi go 1 second slower to take 10th.
The final team, Letua, were led by British TT Champ Bradley Wiggins and a time of 6'36 would give them 6th place.
This means that Slipstream win the opening stage! Jason Donald will be the race leader, while Tyler Farrar is the best young rider.
