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| |  Saturday, 7 July, 2001, 18:16 GMT 19:16 UK Yellow jersey for Moreau Moreau set the standard on the first day of the Tour Festina rider Christophe Moreau took the yellow jersey on the first day of the Tour de France after winning the prologue time trial in Dunkirk on Saturday. Lance Armstrong, the Tour winner for the past two years, had to settle for third place. British contender David Millar finished 42 seconds behind after crashing on the penultimate turn. French champion Moreau, the fourth last rider out by virtue of finishing fourth in last year's race, produced a blistering ride against the clock over the 8.2 kilometre (5.1 miles) course.
"At last I've got the yellow," Moreau said. "It's a gift from God that pushed me forward, that gave me strength and concentration until the end. "I've got nothing to lose in the Tour any more." His time of 9 minutes 20.58 seconds was three seconds better than ONCE's Igor Galdeano Gonzalez. Armstrong finished a further second behind, but Moreau is still wary. "Lance Armstrong will still be the strong man and the man to beat," he said. Millar misery Significantly, though, the American already has a three-second lead over his main rival for the race, 1997 champion Jan Ullrich. The German Deutsche Telekom rider finished fourth in the stage with another Festina rider, French prodigy Florent Brard, in fifth place.
But Cofidis rider Millar, who won the prologue last year, skidded and burst a tyre as he rounded a turn and finished 110th of the 189 riders. Moreau's win means that Festina, the team at the centre of the 1998 Tour drugs scandal, has won the yellow jersey in the Tour for the first time. Brard, meanwhile, is in the white jersey for the best young rider. Tour de France prologue time trial results 1 Christophe Moreau (France) Festina 9 minutes 20 seconds | |
See also:  07 Jul 01 | Tour de France Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top Tour de France stories now: Links to more Tour de France stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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