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Alejandro Valverde won the first stage of the 2008 Tour de France on Saturday after a powerful uphill finish in Plumelec. The Spaniard launched a stunning counter-attack in the final 200m of the 197.5km stage from Brest to Plumelec after Luxembourg's Kim Kirchen looked to have victory in his sights.

Valverde, sixth-place last year and one of the pre-race favourites, now wears the race's first yellow jersey just two weeks after he triumphed in the prestigious Dauphine Libere warm-up event.

"I'm extremely happy to have won the opening stage and have the yellow jersey," the Caisse d'Epargne rider said.

"I felt very great but the team was phenomenal. It was hard work today but I feel in really good form."

With a strong showing in the spring classics season earlier in the year, Valverde is undeniably the man of the moment.

The 28-year-old, however, is not getting carried away. "So far we have only completed one stage," he stressed. "Tomorrow is the next test and we will take things day by day. But I will try and keep the yellow jersey for as long as possible."

Valverde's victory came after an exciting first day's racing which, for the first time since 1966, was not carried out in the format of a prologue time trial.

An early attack by Cofidis' Stephane Auge saw an eight man breakaway - including local rider Lilian Jegou (Francaise des Jeux) and French favourite Thomas Voeckler (Bougyues) - jump out of the peloton just moments after the start.

The eight riders at one point opened up a gap of eight minutes but started to be swept up with 15km of racing to go.

Jegou, riding in front of his local Breton crowd, and Spaniard De La Fuente (Saunier Duval) managed to hold out a little further, but they too were caught kilometres later as the peloton jostled towards the testing finish at Plumelec.

Solo attacks by Agributel's Romain Feillu and Gerolsteiner's Stefan Schumacher both fell by the wayside as the riders hit the punchy 1.7km Cote de Cadoudal, dubbed the Breton Alpe d'Huez.

Kirchen of Team Colombia - formerly High Road - then surprised his rivals with a surge 500m from the finish line, only to be thwarted by Valverde's incredible burst of pace in the closing stages.

With a finale mirroring his superb win in April's Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day classic, the Spaniard powered around the final bend and swept past Kirchen with under 100m to spare.

Belgium's Philippe Gilbert (FdJ) took second place, just one second in arrears, while France's Jerome Pineau (Bouygues) took third.

Kirchen had to settle for fourth while young Italian rider Riccardo Ricco (Saunier), second in the Giro, took fifth.

Overall contenders Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) and Frank Schleck (CSC) underlined their credentials with respective sixth- and seventh-placed finishes, although Schleck had a scare when involved in one of a handful of crashes brought about by the bustling Breton winds.

The only casualty of the day was France's Herve Duclos-Lassalle after the Cofidis rider was forced to abandon his debut Tour with a broken wrist after crashing heavily at the feeding zone.

Colombian Juan Mauricio Soler, the reigning king of the mountains, looked to have aggravated a wrist injury sustained in the Giro after falling 9km from the finish.

The 25-year-old Barloworld rider's overall classification hopes took a dent after he crossed the line more than three minutes behind the impressive Valverde.

Voeckler will be wearing the Tour's first polka dot jersey on Sunday after amassing a tally of points over three low-category cols on Saturday, while fellow Frenchman Pineau will be the de facto green jersey for stage two, a 164.5km slog from Auray to St Brieuc

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Felix Lowe / Eurosport