CYCLING PARIS-NICE:IRELAND'S NICOLAS Roche (AG2R La Mondiale) was sixth in yesterday's 201.5km first stage of Paris-Nice, which was won by New Zealand's Greg Henderson.

The New Zealander beat Slovenia’s Grega Bole and France’s Jeremy Galland on the line. Ireland’s Dan Martin (Garmin-Transitions) finshed in 63rd postition.

Tour de France champion Alberto Contador lost time on the leaders and suffered a painful knock to his leg when he crashed towards the end of the stage.

The race favourite crashed 3km from the finish in Contres after being dropped from the front following a harsh effort by the Caisse d’Epargne team of last year’s winner Luis Leon Sanchez.

“I picked up a pretty good knock,” said the Spaniard Contador. “The pain is quite sharp. I am quite worried. I was on the left side on the road and there was a wave in the peloton. I fell in the grass with Heinrich Haussler.

“It was quite a hard fall but as I was still over 3km from the finish I had little choice but to come back into the bunch.”

Prologue winner Lars Boom retained his overall lead, but Contador, who won Paris-Nice in 2007, is 25 seconds behind in the standings, in eighth place. “It’s not the time lost I’m worried about but how I will feel in the morning,” Contador said.

Germany’s Jens Voigt stayed second overall, five seconds behind Dutchman Boom, and Briton David Millar moved into third, 13 seconds adrift.

Henderson, a former track rider who won his first major road laurels last year on the Tour of Spain, outsprinted the leading group of 17 riders for victory. “I won a sprint in slow motion because we were all so tired because of the cold and wind,” said Henderson, who gave his Team Sky their first pro victory in Australia in January.

American Levi Leipheimer was another of the big names to lose time in the treacherous stage. Held back by one of several pile-ups in the peloton, the RadioShack team leader lies seventh overall, 25 seconds behind Boom.

Today’s 201km second stage takes the peloton to Limoges.