Britain's Mark Cavendish finishes well down the field in 143rd place and afterwards admits he has been holding something back

America's Danny Pate of the Garmin-Chipotle team is an early leader before being toppled by Cofidis's Sylvain Chavanel

Chavanel finishes the Tour's opening time trial in Cholet as the highest-placed Frenchman in 13th place

CSC and Germany's Jens Voigt smashes Chavanel's time by 33 seconds and sets an intimidating marker for the stage favourites

Russia's Denis Menchov of the Rabobank team takes the lead from Voigt with a time of 36 minutes and 18 seconds

Switzerland's world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara, a hot favourite to win the stage, shaves a second off Menchov's mark

However, Germany's Stefan Schumacher smashes Cancellara's time by more than 30 seconds, to the surprise of many onlookers

Cadel Evans of Australia and Silence-Lotto finishes 27 seconds behind Schumacher, grabbing second but eventually finishing fourth

Britain's David Millar comes in just after Evans and the Garmin-Chipolte rider does enough to nick second place

Kim Kirchen of Luxembourg and Team Columbia nabs second spot from Millar by 0.53 seconds, but he is still 18 seconds behind Schumacher

Overnight leader Romain Feillu of France finishes nearly five minutes behind Schumacher and tumbles down the overall standings

Gerolsteiner rider Schumacher leads the overall standings by 12 seconds from Kirchen and Millar and should keep it for a few days yet