Valverde powers to opening stage victory

(CNN) -- Spaniard Alejandro Valverde, one of the pre-race favorites, won Saturday's opening stage of the Tour de France, held over 197.5km of undulating terrain, to pull on the race's leader's yellow jersey.

Valverde powered past Luxembourg's Kim Kirchen in the final 300m as the tiring stage ended in a nasty uphill finish, depriving the recognized team sprinters of any involvement in the final rush to the line.

Belgian Philippe Gilbert followed Valverde home, with Frenchman Jerome Pineau taking third place ahead of the tiring Kirchen.

For the first time since 1967 the world's biggest cycle race did not kick off with a time-trial prologue, with organizers determined to shake up the first week and get the fight for the yellow jersey going as quickly as possible.

With the first stage passing through the home town of France's last winner, Bernard Hinault, in 1985, it took only two kilometers for one of the French riders to attack.

Lilian Jegou's break was soon followed by seven other riders, and they were given almost immediate permission to pull away from the peloton.

By the time the peloton hit the summit of the first of four small climbs, at the 29.5km mark, they were over eight minutes down on the eight leaders.

However, the Caisse d'Epargne team of Valverde was among those who began pulling to the front in a bid to up the tempo and start the chase.

Their efforts soon began to pay and by the time they had passed through the feed zone at the halfway stage, the breakaway lead was down to four minutes.

Sniffing their fate, it was soon to be every man for himself at the front as the peloton brough the deficit down to only three minutes with 55km to race.

Another 20km further on, and with the peloton at just over 1:30 behind them, Frenchman Stephane Auge was first to attack off the front.

But he soon ran out of juice, to leave Jegou and Spaniard David de la Fuente to build a slight advantage. However, with 15km remaining, their adventure was finally over and the peloton then settled down to fight out the finish.

Gerolsteiner's Stefan Schumacher went for a long break as they approached the final kilometer but he was soon swallowed up, leaving Kirchen and eventually Valverde to swoop for victory.

"This is beyond my imagination -- to win the stage and wear the yellow jersey," said Valverde. "But the important thing is to have the yellow jersey in Paris and not now."

Four crashes marred the opening stage, with one of them taking down last season's King of the Mountains Juan Mauricio Soler. The Colombian eventually finished two minutes down on Valverde.

France's Herve Duclos-Lassalle of the Cofidis team, making his Tour debut, became the first rider in the 180-man field to quit the race. He crashed and broke his wrist after a fellow rider's food bag got stuck in his front wheel spokes.