Meersman wins Tour de l'Ain prologue

Gianni Meersman (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) won the Tour de l'Ain prologue time trial by the slimmest of margins: 12 hundredths of a second over teammate Dries Devenyns for the 3.3km course in Trevoux.

Arnaud Gerard (Bretagne-Seche Environnement) rounded out the top three, finishing one second off the pace of Meersman.

Meersman was pleasantly surprised by the stage victory as he'd never won a time trial before in his career.

"I am really happy about my performance," Meersman said. "I didn't expect to win this race because I was off from competition for five weeks. So, it was a long time without racing and I was surprised by my performance. But I also have to say I felt how good my legs were immediately this morning when we did the recon.

"This was for me the first time I won a time trial in my career," continued Meersman. "It is also something special because I was one of the first guys to take off. I was early, so I had to wait almost two hours until the end of the race. I can now understand the time trialists who have to wait a long time."

While Meersman will don the leader's jersey for Saturday's 156km stage between Lagnieu - Bourg-en-Bresse, he and his team will be focussed on their sprinter Andrew Fenn.

"Now, we will see about the next two stages for the sprinters," said Meersman. "We will try to go for Andy Fenn. Concerning the GC, we will see day-by-day what will happen. But the first goal is to put Fenn in position for the sprint in the next days."