Bole wins from Velits (left) and Team Sky's Thomas (right)

Britain's Geraint Thomas finished third in the first stage of the Criterium du Dauphine after a sprint finish.

Team Sky rider Thomas emerged from the front of the peloton towards the end of the 191km stage but Lampre's Grega Bole timed his finish to perfection.

Bole pulled past Thomas in the final 50 metres and held off a late surge from HTC-Columbia's Peter Velits.

Two-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador kept the race leader's yellow jersey while Thomas stayed fourth.

The Welshman finished fourth in Sunday's 6.8km prologue, 10 seconds behind Contador and retained that position in the general classification after a gutsy ride on Monday.

The Dauphine is a week-long Tour de France warm-up race and Spaniard Contador retained his overall lead after finishing in the peloton at the end of a rolling ride from Evian-les-Bains on the banks of Lake Geneva to Saint-Laurent-du-Pont in south-east France.

606: DEBATE Fourth in the prologue and third in the first stage is a pretty impressive start Reverend_T_Preedy

A breakaway group of five riders led for more than 150km of the stage before they were finally caught on the day's final category three climb of Miribel-les-Echelles.

Cyril Gauthier was the last man to be reeled in as his bid to reach the summit first was overhauled by Oscar Pujol of Cervelo and Quick Step's Kevin Seeldrayers who crested the climb on their own.

Team RadioShack's Janez Brajkovic, who began the day five seconds behind Contador, descended into the finishing town the quickest and looked set to take the overall lead before he appeared to lose heart after being joined in the lead by Eros Capecchi of Footon-Servetto.

Rather than working together in the final kilometre, they inexplicably allowed the peloton to close and Bole took full advantage.

Criterium du Dauphine stage one results:

1. Grega Bole (Slo/Lampre) 4hrs 47mins 24secs
2. Peter Velits (Svk/HTC-Columbia) same time
3. Geraint Thomas (GB/Team Sky)
4. Steve Chainel (Fra/Bbox - Bouygues)
5. Christophe Riblon (Fra/AG2R)
6. Christian Knees (Ger/Milram) 7. Stefan Denifl (Aut/Cervelo)
8. Maxime Bouet (Fra/AG2R)
9. Arkaitz Duran (Spa/Footon)
10. Julien El Fares (Fra/Cofidis)

Overall standings:

1. Alberto Contador (Spa/Astana) 4 hours 55 minutes 58 seconds
2. Tejay Van Garderen (US/HTC - Columbia) +2"
3. Janez Brajkovic (Slo/RadioShack) +5"
4. Geraint Thomas (GB/Team Sky) +10"
5. Dario Cataldo (Ita/Quick-Step) +12"

Selected other:

9. David Millar (GB/Garmin) +15"

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