Andre Greipel won the 2012 season opening Cancer Care Classic Prologue in Adelaide, Australia today.
A strong field which included Brits such as Geraint Thomas could not stop Greipel who rides for Lotto Belisol being lead out by Greg Henderson to take the UCI World Tour 30 laps of a 1.7km circuit, race.
Greipel finished ahead of Team Sky's Edvald Boasson Hagen and Garmin's Heinrich Haussler in third.
British and Irish finishers: Geraint Thomas 45th, Matthew Brammeier 96th, Adam Blythe 113th, Andrew Fenn 122nd, Alex Dowsett 126th.
The Santos Tour Down Under starts on Tuesday and more details on this race will appear on this site.