Greipel takes sprint victory in Hesperange

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Having won three straight stages at the Tour of Belgium last week, Andre Greipel (Lotto Belisol) continued his run of top form with a sprint victory in the opening road stage at the Skoda-Tour de Luxembourg. Davide Appollonio (Sky) finished second behind Greipel, followed by Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) in third place for the 181km stage.

Prologue time trial winner Jimmy Engoulvent (Saur-Sojasun) finished safely in the peloton and remains in the general classification lead, as no time bonuses were allotted during today's stage. Grégory Rast (Radioshack-Nissan) and Jonathan Hivert (Saur-Sojasun) hold second and third overall respectively, tied on time at three seconds behind Engoulvent.

The attacks came literally from the gun in the Tour of Luxembourg's first road stage, as Jesus Rosendo Prado (Andalucia) jumped away from the peloton at kilometre zero. The Spaniard was soon joined by Albert Timmer (Argos-Shimano) to form the early break. The duo's advantage was pegged at two to three minutes and their escape continued through the third and final classified climb at 117.9km.

The RadioShack-Nissan team set a strong tempo over the final ascent in hope of splintering the field, and while the team was successful in neutralising the escape their plan didn't break up the peloton as planned. However, several kilometres later, Jens Voigt (RadioShack-Nissan) launched a solo attack and soon found himself with a lead of approximately three minutes over the peloton in the approach to the 16km finishing circuit.

"I thought maybe I could take the stage win and the yellow jersey," said Voigt on his team website. "I was believing in myself today, especially when the gap was something close to three minutes. I gave it everything I had."

The teams of the sprinters, however, increased the tempo in the peloton and caught Voigt inside the final 10 kilometres and set the stage for a field sprint finale.