Frenchman Christophe Moreau donned the Tour de France overall leaders' yellow jersey in his fifth attempt at winning the worlds' greatest cycling race after the 8.2 kilometre prologue in Dunkirk.
The 30-year-old, who three years ago was thrown off the Tour as part of the Festina team who were involved in systematic drug-taking and had earlier that season failed a drugs test for steroids, clocked a time of 9 minutes 20.59 seconds to relegate Spaniard Gonzalez Galdeano into second with America's two-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong third.
"At last I've got the yellow," said Moreau, who finished fourth overall last year. "It's really a bonus for me winning the yellow jersey and the Tour prologue like this," he said.
"I wanted to clock a good time to make sure that I kept [Lance] Armstrong and [Jan] Ullrich in check for the rest of the Tour."