Kiwi News

Tour Prologue start times 2012

Argos Shimano and Felt are first to ride the 2012 Tour de France ©Graham Watson

Jun 30th, 12. A Felt bike will be the first steed to start the 99th Tour de France when the prologue gets underway in Liege at midnight NZ time - according to the prologue start list.

The first rider to take on the 6.4km time trial around the streets of Liège is Tom Veelers of the Argos-Shimano squad. His start time is 2.00pm Belgian time, midnight NZ time.

Riders will then depart at one-minute intervals. New Zealand's Greg Henderson is the 99th rider to start the 99th Tour de France. The Lotto Belisol rider begins at 3:38pm, or 1:38am NZ time.

The final rider to start will be defending champion, Cadel Evans from BMC. The Australian's start time is 5.17pm, or 3:17am NZ time.

Simon Gerrans (Orica GreenEdge) is the second rider in the order of departure for the prologue. He starts at 2.01pm and, going on a recent short time trial – on the opening day of the Criterium du Dauphiné – he has the potential to be the man who sets the early standard: the Australian champion was sixth in the TT in Grenoble in June.

Others who performed well in the Dauphiné are also early starters including Andriy Grivko (Astana), who was third on the opening day of the one-week stage race this June, is the fourth rider to start this year's Tour.

The suspense will remain high until the end as Evans is one rider who could challenge for the win in the TT. He was second in the most recent time trial of the Tour de France – the penultimate stage of the 2011 race. Although he is the defending champion, he will not wear the yellow jersey as was once the case.

The start times of other specialists are: the world TT champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma Lotto) at 4.58pm, the overall winner of the Dauphiné, Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) at 5.07pm, and the rider who won the prologue on a very similar course in Liège back in 2004, Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack Nissan Trek) who leaves the start house at 5.16pm.

David Millar, who missed the Team Presentation due to illness, will be on the prologue start line but after two days of vomiting his Garmin Sharp team say he is unlikely to be a Top 10 contender.

View the start list file ... PrologueStartList.pdf or view the prologue map and profile.