Adriano Malori has won the Tirreno-Adriatico Prologue.
This annual race of the two seas, which was without the ill Chris Froome, was forced to start with a 5.7km prologue rather than the scheduled team time trial due to weather conditions.
Davide Villella of Cannondale-Garmin was first down the ramp in Lido di Camaiore for the start of the race but it was Mathieu Ladagnous of FDJ who set the early time to beat of 6:18.
That lasted until Daniel Oss of BMC finished in 6.08 and then former world hour record holder Matthias Brandle (IAM Cycling) finished two seconds quicker.
Mark Cavendish finished in 6.16 and Steve Cummings of MTN Quhbeka came home in 6.12, three seconds faster than Vincenzo Nibali, who is one of the favourites for this race.
Greg Van Avermaet clocked a time of 6.06 with Fabian Cancellera finishing a second quicker in 6.05 to take second place as last man down the ramp, Alberto Contador who has signed a new deal with Tinkoff Saxo could only finish in 6.23 which gave Malori the win and the leaders jersey going into the first stage.
Result
1 Adriano Malori Movistar :06:04
2 Fabian Cancellara Trek Factory Racing +1
3 Greg Van Avermaet BMC Racing Team + 2
4 Maciej Bodnar Tinkoff-Saxo
5 Matthias Brandle IAM Cycling
6 Daniel Oss BMC Racing
7 Ramunas Navardausaks Cannondale-Garmin
8 Stephen Cummings MTN - Qhubeka
9 Peter Sagan Tinkoff-Saxo
10 Johan Le Bon FDJ.