Kiel Prologue   

In Kiel the talking stops and the racing begins. No teams arrive for Germany tour without having earned their place. Whether Climbers, sprinters and time triallists, all will have something to prove on this 8km prologue in Kiel. Kiel is a city in the north of Germany, a centre of ship-building and has a strong nautical tradition, but today all eyes turn to the bikes today at the start of the biggest tour on the cycling calenda...

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In Kiel the talking stops and the racing begins. No teams arrive for Germany tour without having earned their place. Whether Climbers, sprinters and time triallists, all will have something to prove on this 8km prologue in Kiel. Kiel is a city in the north of Germany, a centre of ship-building and has a strong nautical tradition, but today all eyes turn to the bikes today at the start of the biggest tour on the cycling calendar.

The stage is short enough to offer something to sprinters able to time trial, but long enough that the purer time trial riders should have the upper hand. The route starts by the canal north of Tiergehege Tannenberg and heads through town finishing at the steps of the central train station, Hauptbahnhof. The route is completely flat, sometimes exposed to the wind and a number of tight turns require good technique. Plenty of the field will see success as getting around the course safely, for a number of general classification contenders the mission will be damage limitation, and to talented time-triallists an early confidence boosting stage result will be on the cards.