Tour de France 2007 / prologue

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Result of the prologue
Stage winner Fabian Cancellara 8:50 min
(53.660 km / h)
Second Andreas Klöden + 0:13 min
Third George Hincapie + 0:23 min
Fourth Bradley Wiggins + 0:23 min
fifth Vladimir Gusev + 0:25 min
Sixth Vladimir Karpez + 0:26 min
seventh Alexander Vinokurov + 0:30 min
Eighth Thomas Dekker + 0:31 min
Ninth Manuel Quinziato + 0:32 min
Tenth Benoît Vaugrenard + 0:32 min
Intermediate results after the prologue
Yellow jersey Fabian Cancellara 8:50 min
Second Andreas Klöden + 0:13 min
Third George Hincapie + 0:23 min
Green jersey Fabian Cancellara 15 p.
Second Andreas Klöden 12 p.
Third George Hincapie 10 p.
White jersey Vladimir Gusev 9:15 min
Second Thomas Dekker + 0:06 min
Third Benoît Vaugrenard + 0:07 min
Team evaluation Team Astana 27:48 min
Second Team CSC + 0:02 min
Third Discovery Channel + 0:05 min

The prologue of the Tour de France 2007 on July 7th was 7.9 kilometers long and took the riders on a circuit through the inner city of the British capital London .

course

The route through the city center began in Whitehall and led the 189 starters from 21 teams past Big Ben , Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace first to Hyde Park . After another drive past Buckingham Palace, the finish line followed on The Mall at St. James's Park . Apart from a few curves, the course had no demanding passages.

The favorites for the opening win were the Swiss time trial world champion Fabian Cancellara , who had already won the start of the Tour de Suisse a few weeks earlier, the Britons David Millar and Bradley Wiggins , as well as the American David Zabriskie .

The drivers started at 3 p.m. local time every minute. The first driver on the track was the Italian Enrico Degano from Team Barloworld . The last driver to start at 6:08 p.m. was last year's winner Óscar Pereiro , wearing the Caisse d'Epargne jersey .

Among the favorites for the overall victory, the German Andreas Klöden initially shocked the competition with a time of 9:03 minutes, with which he distanced the specialists for this discipline, George Hincapie and David Zabriskie, at the finish by ten and 19 seconds respectively. As a result, none of the favorites came even close to Klöden's time. His team mate Alexander Vinokurow lost 17 seconds to him and Alejandro Valverde even 30. Only Fabian Cancellara, who was the third from last driver on the track, clearly undercut the times of the German. At the finish he was 13 seconds ahead of Klöden and secured the yellow jersey of the overall leader in the third-fastest prologue in Tour history. Third place in the daily ranking went to George Hincapie. For Cancellara it was the second prologue victory in a Tour de France after 2004 .

In addition to the yellow jersey, Fabian Cancellara also took on the green jersey as the leader in the sprint classification. The best young driver was the Russian Vladimir Gussew , who finished the prologue in fifth place with a time of 9:15 minutes and thus 25 seconds behind Cancellara. In the standings for the white jersey he was six seconds ahead of Dutchman Thomas Dekker and seven seconds ahead of Frenchman Benoît Vaugrenard . Team Astana secured the top position in the team standings . With Andreas Klöden in second, Alexander Vinokurow in seventh and Andrei Kaschetschkin in 16th place, they achieved the best team result. Behind them, the CSC team and Discovery Channel took the other places.

Intermediate results

1. Intermediate time measurement point on West Carriage Drive (kilometer 4.5) (15 m above sea level)

First Fabian Cancellara 5:07 min
Second Andreas Klöden + 0:07 min
Third George Hincapie + 0:14 min
Fourth Vladimir Karpez + 0:15 min
fifth Vladimir Gusev + 0:15 min
Sixth Bradley Wiggins + 0:15 min
seventh Alexander Vinokurov + 0:15 min
Eighth José Iván Gutiérrez + 0:16 min
Ninth Manuel Quinziato + 0:16 min
Tenth David Zabriskie + 0:17 min