course was raced in cool, cloudy conditions and despite occasional light rain proved to be very fast, but it caused the fall of several riders. The winner was Swiss Tour-debutant Fabian Cancellara who completed the course in 6'51" at an average speed of 53.560 km/h, the third fastest in the race's history. Cancellara was in his second year with the Fassa Bortolo and was junior and U23 world time trial champion in 1999 and 2000 respectively. Lance Armstrong finished second, just seconds behind Cancellara's time, and impressively ahead of most of his major competitors in the general classification, and all the other expected challengers finished within 20" of Cancellara, who after the prologue declared that he believed himself to be the world's best rider in such short distances. Cancellara's performance put him at the top of both the general classification and the race for sprinters points, which would give him both the yellow, white and green jerseys. Since one does not wear two jerseys, however, the green jersey is "loaned" to the racer in second place in that competition, which, in this case, had the unusual result of putting Lance Armstrong in green. Prologue results and general Classification Stage 1 4 July 2004 — Liège to Charleroi, The stage covered from Liège to Charleroi, heading south from Liège before looping back and heading west to the finish. The first third of the route included three cat-4 climbs and there were a cat-3 and a cat-4 climb around the middle of the course. For the Tour the course was almost flat and a mass sprint was expected at the finish. The weather was cool and cloudy at the start, later there was rain. The race had a lively start with a breakaway barely 15 minutes from the start. With various contributors the small group led by less than 20 seconds over the first two climbs. Their lead extended to 1'10" on the third climb and after the first hour of racing the five-strong group was almost 2'30" clear. The main sprinter's teams in the peloton were slow to organise as a number of crashes and other problems delayed their team leaders. The lead peaked at around 3'45" but after 115 km in the lead the breakaways were reeled in by the main group. The sprint teams held the peloton together until the third intermediate sprint at Eghezee. An attack by Jakob