Engoulvent quickest in Luxembourg prologue

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Jimmy Engoulvent showed he is the champion of the Tour of Luxembourg prologue by netting his third career victory here. The Saur-Sojasun rider topped Gregory Rast (Radioshack-Nissan) by just under three seconds, with Engoulvent's teammate Jonathan Hivert a half second further behind in third.

Hivert, according to his team, might have given the team a 1-2 finish had he not had trouble with his gears. Since Engoulvent's first win here in 2007, he has at least been on the podium each year he has competed, and has come close to the same time: today's 3:43.38 was a winner but was shy of his best time in 2010 where he went two seconds quicker.

His directeur sportif Gilles Pauchard was impressed with how his rider regained his speed after switching up his winter training in order to gain better recovery after such hard efforts. "Initially, it caused him to lose his punch. He finally found the right adjustment, he came back in the game."

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Rast was pleased to be near the top of the leaderboard after the long trip back from the Tour of California. "Every year I'm good in this Prologue," said Rast. "I did a little better than I expected today. I came back from California and suffered a little bit of jet lag, plus I was a little bit sick with a cold. I was focused to try to win this prologue but it was not possible this time."

The Tour of Luxembourg continues through Sunday.

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