AG2R's Alexis Gougeard has taken victory on the 75th Tour de l'Eurométropole prologue.
This race in Belgium, formerly known as Circuit Franco Belge, got underway with a 7.7km prologue, followed by four road stages with the finish of the race in Tournai on Sunday.
The time trial was from Obigies to Mont-St-Aubert and saw Martin Keizer of LottoNL-Jumbo set the early time to beat of 11.26.94 on a sunny day in Belgium.
AG2R's Alexis Gougeard then went fastest in 11.23.81 and he said: "I did not know what my shape like out of the Vuelta but I felt good and had a lot of motivation. I did not know where I was on the very hard final climb and there is a head wind which makes the final 200m difficult."
Former hour record Matthias Brandle had been favourite for the stage but he could only finish in a time of 11.35 and was amongst a whole bunch of riders finishing under twelve minutes.
Brandle said: "I made a good climb but without the wind things may have been different. We have a strong team here and on some of the next stages we can go on the attack."
No-one could get near Gougeard's time and he took the stage by three seconds from Martin Keizer.
Source: DSG
