2010 Tour de France, Prologue to Stage 10#Prologue
The prologue of the Tour de France 2010 was a 8.9 km long individual time trial and took on 3 July 2010 in Rotterdam in the Netherlands instead. It was the first prologue since 2007. The profile was almost completely flat and had two very short climbs over the Erasmus Bridge and the Willems Bridge.
The Spaniard Xavier Florencio was suspended a few hours before the race of his Cervélo TestTeam. According to the team lead he had used an ointment with banned ingredients. It was re-nominated no athlete, so the team started to Carlos Sastre with eight instead of nine riders in the Tour de France.
The estimated investment for hosting the tour start was from 10 and 12 million euros. The expected revenues were at 35 to 40 million euros.
Race course
Iban Mayoz drove the first driver at 16:15 clock on the ramp. Launched in eleventh Tony Martin from team HTC - Columbia led for a long time at the standings. Only time trial world champion Fabian Cancellara, who started from second to last driver was able to underbid Martins best. The Swiss from Team Saxo Bank, the flight in exactly 10 minutes. Cancellara was able to repeat his success of the previous year and take the first yellow jersey. Overall, it was for him the fourth victory in an opening time trial of the Tour de France. Martin was awarded the white jersey for the best young rider.
Lance Armstrong achieved the fastest time of the favorites for the overall title in fourth place at 22 seconds back. Favorite and last year's winner Alberto Contador, who was at 19:32 clock on the track, lost five seconds to Armstrong.
During the middle portion of the race it rained. It was only towards the end, the rain stopped and the track dried up almost entirely from.
Both the Swiss Mathias Frank of BMC Racing Team as well as the Portuguese Manuel Antonio Cardoso of Footon - Servetto came during the race to case. Frank suffered a fracture in the right thumb and a muscle tear in his thigh, Cardoso was admitted with double jaw fracture in a clinic. Both drivers were not at the start of the first stage the following day.
Standings
Sprint
- Target in Rotterdam ( 8.9 km ) (4 m NAP)