page_title: 2012 Tour de France, Prologue to Stage 10
section_title: Prologue
hierarchical_section_title: 2012 Tour de France, Prologue to Stage 10 / Prologue
caption_attribution_description: 001 Cadel Evans In about three hours he will set out to win the Tour another time.
context_page_description: The 2012 Tour de France began on 30 June, and stage 10 occurred on 11 July. The 2012 edition began with a prologue – a short individual time trial stage – where each member of the starting peloton of 198 riders competed against the clock – in Liège, Belgium with two more stages held in the country before moving back into France. The race resumed in Orchies for the start of the third stage; also during the first half of the race, the peloton visited Switzerland for the finish to the eighth stage in Porrentruy, and contested another individual time trial stage – having returned to France – the following day.
  Fabian Cancellara held the lead of the race throughout its opening Belgian leg; having won the race-commencing prologue, Cancellara defended it on the following two stages before the race returned to France. Cancellara maintained his overall lead for the rest of the race's first week, before eventually losing time on the first true mountain stage of the race – stage seven – as he was dropped on the closing climb to La Planche des Belles Filles. As a result, Bradley Wiggins assumed the maillot jaune, becoming the first British rider to wear the jersey since 2000.
context_section_description: 30 June 2012 — Liège (Belgium), 6.4 km (4.0 mi), (ITT)
  The prologue was a short and fairly flat circuit around Liège, with expected stage times to be about eight minutes. The start ramp was located at Avenue Rogier next to the Parc d'Avroy; the riders then headed north by the Boulevard d'Avroy and Boulevard de la Sauvenière. They then followed the Quai Roosevelt, along the Meuse, until the midway point when they returned on the opposite carriageway, before turning right towards Place Saint-Lambert, in front of the Palais des Princes-Évêques. From there, the riders rejoined the original route on the opposite carriageway of Boulevard de la Sauvenière before the finish line located on Boulevard d'Avroy on the opposite side of the Parc d'Avroy from the start.
  With several tight corners, the prologue was expected to favour riders with good bike handling skills. The first rider to leave the start house in Liège was Argos–Shimano's Tom Veelers, with most of the general classification contenders going towards the end of the starting order, as rain was not scheduled to disrupt the race. Veelers set a time of 7' 47" for the course – which was near-identical to the 2004 prologue held in the city, won by then-Fassa Bortolo rider Fabian Cancellara, over a 6.1 km (3.8 mi) parcours – but this was immediately beaten by Orica–GreenEDGE rider Simon Gerrans, who went five seconds quicker around the course. Gerrans' lead was also not to last for long, as Ukrainian national champion Andriy Hryvko (Astana) bettered his mark by 14 seconds; the time was ultimately good enough for tenth place in the stage results. Hryvko held the lead for over an hour, as no other rider could get within three seconds of his time at that point.
  It was not until Gerrans' teammate Brett Lancaster, a former prologue winner at the Giro d'Italia, that Hryvko's time was beaten; Lancaster recorded a time four seconds quicker, crossing the line at 7' 24". Team Sky rider Edvald Boasson Hagen marginally bettered Lancaster's time to assume the lead for a time, but French champion Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma–Quick-Step) set a mark of 7' 20" for the course. His time held until the final ten riders to take to the course; Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) trailed Chavanel by six seconds at the intermediate time-check – coming around halfway through the test – but paced the second half better to negate the deficit, and beat the time of Chavanel by around half a second. Cancellara, the pre-stage favourite, recorded the fastest time of 3' 35" to the intermediate point, and extended his eventual stage-winning margin to seven seconds by the finish; in the process, Cancellara won his fifth Tour prologue stage, a record.
  Of other overall contenders, defending champion Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team), Liquigas–Cannondale's Vincenzo Nibali and Garmin–Sharp rider Ryder Hesjedal, the winner of May's Giro d'Italia, all placing solidly inside the top twenty riders. Nibali's teammate Peter Sagan and world time trial champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma–Quick-Step), who both had been tipped as favourites to win the stage, both encountered difficulties on the course during their respective runs. Sagan lost time after he overshot one of the 180-degree hairpin bends and had to clip out of the pedals, while Martin – who had set a similar time to teammate Chavanel at the intermediate time-check – suffered a puncture, and ultimately finished 23 seconds down on Cancellara's time.
caption: BMC Racing Team's Cadel Evans, the defending champion, warming up before the stage. He eventually finished the stage in thirteenth place, seventeen seconds down on stage winner Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack–Nissan).
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