Bradley Wiggins established himself as the favorite for the 99th Tour de France with a superb opening time trial, placing second behind time trial specialist Fabian Cancellera.
The Team Sky leader finished 7 seconds behind Cancellera, but more importantly finished 10 seconds faster than defending Tour de France champion Cadel Evans of Team BMC.
Wiggins is looking to become the Britain's first Tour de France overall champion, after getting off to a stellar 2012 season winning 3 races including the Critérium du Dauphiné.
In order to win the Tour de France, Wiggins will need every second to count over other Tour general classification favorites.
Besides taking 10 second over Evans, Wiggins was 6 second faster than Katusha's Denis Menchov, 11 seconds faster than Garmin's Ryder Hesjedal, Liquigas' Vincenzo Nibali, 21 seconds faster than Omega's Levi Leipheimer, and 31 seconds faster than RadioShack's Frank Schleck.
On this day, Wiggins time trial effort was only beaten by Cancellera.
"Fair play to Fabian, he's the best in the world at what he does and I think he proved that again today," Wiggins said after the stage.
Defending Tour de France champion Cadel Evans limited his losses to Wiggins, which sets up a competitive dynamic for the rest of the race.
"One GC rider ahead of me, but I was half expecting that. That's what Wiggins' background is, these short hard efforts," Evans said.
"The real racing starts tomorrow."
Stage 1 of the Tour de France begins tomorrow from Liege to Seraing. Wiggins will look hold or limit his losses tomorrow.
The short uphill finish will lend itself to riders like Evans, Evan's BMC teammate Philippe Gilbert, and Liquigas sensation Peter Sagan.
