Fabian Cancellara wins opening stage of 2011 Tour de Luxembourg: Cycling News
Leopard Trek team’s Fabian Cancellara won the prologue stage of 2011 Tour de Luxembourg in Ville on Wednesday, June 1.
The 30-year-old, Cancellara, took a total of 3 minutes, 42 seconds to cover a distance of 2.6 kilometres.
Damien Gaudin of the Europcar team was the runner-up with 5.670 seconds behind Fabian. Jimmy Engoulvent of the Saur-Sojasun team was in the third place with the difference of 8.250 seconds.
Romain Feillu, Mathew Hayman and Jimmy Casper were in fourth, fifth and sixth place, respectively.
Remembering his fallen team-mate, Wouter Weylandt, Fabian told the media, "I feel very motivated now for all that is coming, I wanted to get a personal win and a win for the team, but I especially wanted to ride the perfect race after our loss a few weeks
ago. This win is for Wouter.”
Recently, Cancellara won E3 Prijs Vlaanderen and grabbed second place in Milan-San Remo and second place in Paris-Roubaix. He also took the third place in Ronde van Vlaanderen.
Cancellara's team-mate, Martin Mortensen, set the early fast time, but he grabbed eighth place with 14 seconds behind Fabian.
The group of four riders made their first break, including Fabian Cancellara, Damien Gaudin, Jimmy Engoulvent and Romain Feillu. Engoulvent took a lead ahead of Dane, but Gaudin was in good form and managed to catch the other riders.
However, Fabian paced his speed and crossed the finish-line ahead of the other cyclists.
Fabian Cancellara also took an overall leader’s yellow jersey with a timing of 3 minutes, 42 seconds and Damien Gaudin was runner-up with 5 seconds behind Fabian.
Fabian further added, “Even when I win, like today, I always find something that I could have done better. The short effort required during a prologue like this one does not correspond with what we do during a normal race. That’s why it’s so interesting.”
Jimmy Engoulvent grabbed third place with difference of 8 seconds. Damien Gaudin of Europcar won the title of best young riders white jersey ahead of Ian Stannard.
The first stage will start in Luxembourg and ended in Bascharage. All the riders will cover a distance of 192.8 kilometres.
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