Zubeldia zips to prologue victory

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Haimar Zubeldia (Team RadioShack) won the Tour de l'Ain's prologue time trial, the Spaniard's first professional victory in 10 years. Zubeldia edged out 19-year-old Wilco Kelderman (Rabobank Continental) and Laurent Mangel (Saur-Sojasun) over the technical, 3km course with the top three separated by only hundredths of a second.

"This is more than I expected," said Zubeldia. "I only had the Clásica San Sebastián in my legs as competition. Moreover, this prologue looked just too short for me, but Team Director Alain Gallopin pushed me over the limit."

"At 1km from the finish, I saw that Haimar was only one second slower than Kelderman, who had the best time," said Gallopin. "As Haimar always has been a good prologue rider, I yelled him through the not-so-easy last kilometre to the finish in the Rue Alexandre Bérard. I am convinced that Haimar can win the overall classification on Saturday. With only six riders per team it is not so easy to control the race, but we will do everything we can."

Zubeldia's prologue victory earned the 33-year-old Spaniard the Tour de l'Ain's leader's jersey, which he hopes to defend through the next four stages.

"I am not a winner. My job in the team is to help our Grand Tour riders in the mountains. I always kept working hard. This victory is a nice compensation for my hard work. We are a small but good team and we will try to keep yellow until the end. It would be nice to win this 22nd Tour de l'Ain," said Zubeldia.

The peloton will contest the Tour de l'Ain's first road stage tomorrow, covering 144.4km from Lagnieu to Saint-Vulbas.