Discovery Channel are favourites for the 23km TTT, with Cofidis, Liquigas and Caisse d'Epargne tipped to do well.
Caisse d'Epargne were the first team off and Luis Leon Sanchez Gil rode the first pedals of this year's Giro d'Italia. Sanchez is ranked 43rd in the ProTour rankings. Caisse will be looking to get Gibo Simoni in Pink tonight - although they do desperately want their first win.
ProTour leaders Ag2r are the next to start, before Bradley Wiggins leads out Cofidis and Andy Schleck leads out the very strong Liquigas team, who are followed by FDJ.
As Quick Step get underway we have news that Caisse d'Epargne are leading at the first check with 11'04. They are the first team through.
Danilo di Luca leads out Astana as Cofidis take the new best time at Check #1: 10'27. Lampre, Discovery Channel, Saunier Duval and Milram have all started their Giro d'Italia. Cofidis still lead at the first check, but faded badly at the 2nd one and are 4th out of 4. Liquigas now lead at Check 2.
CSC are on their way and Caisse d'Epargne are racing into the finish. Felix Cardenas leads them across the line with a time of 32'48. Simoni was the 5th to cross and they finished with 7, losing Perez Arrieta and Richeze.
As Bouygues start the Giro another french team finish. Ag2r have lost Usov and Mazzanti leads them to a poor time of 33'15. Verbrugghe leads all 9 Cofidis riders across the line in 33'22, last at the moment.
Andy Schleck leads Liquigas over the finish line and they beat Caisse d'Epargne by 12 seconds! Are they beatable today?
They may well turn out to be as Discovery beat them at the 2nd check as FDJ came in last @ 33'29.
Quick Step dropped Tossatto as they went 1 second slower than FDJ. Next into the finish comes Astana who take 4th, having lost Abakoumov. 33'16 for them.
Bennati and Cunego make it safely home with Lampre who take 3rd: 33'12.
Alex Ardila takes T-Mobile to 2nd, just 4 seconds behind Liquigas @ 32'40 - shame that they dropped their sprinter Ciolek.
Next in is Discovery Channel, the big favourites and Thor Hushovd leads them across the line, and its 1st! At 32'16 they have shattered Liquigas's time by 20 seconds. Their sprints could be interesting with Hushovd, Davis and Bettini all racing. Davis was dropepd near the end of the stage today though.
Robbie Hunter is the next man in, leading the other 8 Saunier Duval riders to 6th - 33'13.
Michael Rogers leads home the Milram train but it was no use they are last, by 22 seconds! 33'52.
CSC cross the line in 5th. Their sprinter JJ Haedo may have lost a second or two as he was struggling near the end. He will look forward to the sprints, with Goss as his main lead out man.
Bouygues Telecom are next home and they passed the Italian DMT (Controleld by me) in the last KM. Bouygues were pretty crap though and could only beat Milram (And DMT ).
Thats the last of the ProTour squads so lets wrap up the result.
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