We start the 'peoples' Grand Tour with a 5 km prologue. That should be the perfect distance for the specialists to duke out for an early stint in yellow and lay some early groundwork for the GC hopefuls.
Schomber is an early starter as one of the main favourites for the stage. He nearly catches the man ahead of him as he sets the best time at 5'45''.
Zhao from home team McCormick has come closest so far, but still 7 seconds off the mark.
But the top time doesn't last as long as you would think as Van Moer comes in at 5'44''.
The Turtles manager would have wanted more from Oka, but the Japanese only placed 6th with many quality riders still to come.
Kukrle I think can be reasonably happy right now as he comes across the line with the 3rd best time.
Lunke has some GC ambitions as he comes in 7th. Not bad.
Cataford is 8th across the line, not as fast as his Czech teammate.
It remains to be seen if Ciccone can impact the GC at this race, but he places 5th for now.
The other main favourite today is Chavanne and he delivers with a new best time of 5'43''.
Belevics knocks Zhao out of the top 5. A decent ride from the Latvian champion.
Prado crosses the line only 13th, but no real time losses compared to the other maybe GC riders.
Jorgenson sends an early message as he's a second faster than Lunke and Prado.
Enger is someone to watch from an early GC perspective if he can get in yellow after a couple of sprint stages. The important number for him is 17'' behind the lead time.
Gabriel Chavanne wins the opening stage of the Tour of America and takes the lead in the overall and points classifications. Madsen leads the U25s.
Tour of America - Stage 1 
