Stage Favourites:
* Ford, * Olman, * Cavendish, * Clesen & *Coquard
We get underway with a 1 kilometre prologue, blink and you will miss it.
Project: Africa, the home-ish team, will have big hopes for Maksimov in the overall but it is
Wesemann, who sets an early lead time of 1'18.
It is clear, very early on, that no one will lose more than '20 today and that many times, including the top ones, would be separated by milliseconds.
BISH!
Olman would be the next to go fastest, the stage favourite coming home at 1'17.
BASH!
However, the Aussie would soon be dethroned by his teammate.
M Ford goes fastest with a time of 1'15.
BOSH!
Are we looking at a
Oz Cycling Project 1-2-3? When,
W Ford finishes at 1'18, the OZ team has the top three riders provisionally.
The Egyptian champ out on course.
Alas, it would not be a 1-2-3 for
Oz Cycling Project today. The likes of Cavendish, Coquard, Kiflay, Clesen and Castaneda would also finish @ '2 & '3. The order in which they finished would be disclosed after the stage had wrapped up.
Hochmann would be the main one to spoil the all Aussie podium. The
Team Ameriabank-Novatek rider puts in something of a surprise to finish 3
rd in the prologue, a good sign for the sprint finishes?
Kiflay does well to finish in the top 5 on his home continent.
The wind did pick up for the final 30 riders out on course, which did hamper any efforts to get close to Ford's time. Notably
Ciolek finished in 101
st, he will be hoping to finish exactly 100 places higher on stage 2 which is perhaps the first of four consecutive sprint finishes.
So
M Ford moves into the race lead having won the prologue. With no one down more than '12 seconds down, the race has only just begun.
