Team Sky's Geraint Thomas wins his first career Tour de France stage on the soaking streets of Dusseldorf

Thomas won the stage by five seconds from BMC Racing's Stefan Kung, while Nairo Quintana's Movistar team-mate Alejandro Valverde crashed out of the race

Team Sky enjoyed a dream start to the 2017 edition (Getty )

Geraint Thomas won his first career Tour de France stage and took the yellow jersey as Team Sky enjoyed a dream start to the 2017 edition on the soaking streets of Dusseldorf.

Thomas completed the opening 14-kilometre time trial in 16 minutes and four seconds to win by five seconds from BMC Racing's Stefan Kung.

Thomas' team-mate Chris Froome finished sixth, 12 seconds down, as he stole an early advantage over his rivals in his bid to win a third straight Tour crown and fourth overall.

“I'm still shocked to be honest," Thomas said. "I didn't expect it, I didn't know what to expect, but to win the stage is incredible and the yellow on top is amazing.”

“It's really great for the team that Geraint has won," Froome added. "The time trial is something I've worked on during the past three weeks and we've taken time on rivals too, which is a great start.”

Bury's Simon Yates, of Orica-Scott, was the second best of the general classification hopefuls, giving up 25 seconds to Froome, while Richie Porte of BMC conceded 35 seconds.

“I've been cautious,” Porte said after his run. “It was slippery. It wasn't the best time trial for me. I was nervous. It was better to take no risk.”

Froome was delighted for his team-mate (Getty)

Movistar's Nairo Quintana gave up 36 seconds but suffered an even greater loss as key team-mate Alejandro Valverde crashed badly on a corner and was taken to hospital, putting him out of the race.

For all the pre-race talk of a weakened Team Sky, they finished with four riders in the top eight as Vasil Kiriyenka was third, seven seconds back, and Michal Kwaitkowski eighth, 15 seconds down on Thomas.

Thomas becomes the eighth Briton to wear the yellow jersey after Tom Simpson, Chris Boardman, Sean Yates, David Millar, Sir Bradley Wiggins, Froome and Mark Cavendish.


 Thomas had never before worn the yellow jersey 
 (Getty)

Germany's world time trial champion Tony Martin of Katusha-Alpecin had been favourite to take the stage on home turf but had to settle for fourth place, eight seconds off Thomas' time.

The victory will be extra sweet for Thomas, who was given the chance to lead Sky in the first grand tour of the year but saw his dream of winning the Giro d'Italia ended in a freak crash caused by a police motorbike at the end of the first week.

Valverde was far from the only man to crash as steady drizzle fell over Dusseldorf throughout the afternoon.


 Valverde crashed out of the race during the first stage 
 (Getty)

Bahrain-Merida's leader Jon Izaguirre also crashed out while Porte's road captain Nicolas Roche hit the deck along with the likes of Scott Thwaites (Team Dimension Data) and Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Soudal).

“It's not great for me, but it's a city centre prologue and obviously the road is greasy underneath the rain, it doesn't help,” Irishman Roche said.

“I'm not sure if it was a bit of oil or the tram tracks, I don't know when the wheel went first. I'm a bit disappointed, I was hoping to do a good prologue.”