The Tour de Slovenié began on Thursday evening with an 8.8 kilometre prologue in the capital city of Ljubljana. With three prologue specialists amongst its eight rider squad, Orica-GreenEDGE Sport Director Matt Wilson hit it spot on as he judged the late night race against the clock as the team’s best chance for a top result.

“We have riders in Slovenia that are in varying stages of their season,” explained Wilson on the team website prior to the beginning of the prologue. “Most will have one stage that suits them better than others, and they’ll give it a go on that stage. The primary objective for most of the squad is to get some June racing in their legs in preparation for later season goals.”

“The prologue is a good chance for Brett [Lancaster], Heppy [Michael Hepburn] and Svein [Tuft],” Wilson continued “The distance and profile suit them.”

As the events of the prologue unfolded Wilson was proved to be a man who knows what he’s talking about as the Orica-GreenEDGE team completely dominated the race, taking a double win and laying claims to three slots in the top 5 of the day. Eventually Svein Tuft would emerge as the fastest man on what he described as a very fast prologue through the streets of the Slovenian capital.

"This was a very fast time trial. There were many times when I reached 54 and even 55 km/h. I should be very pleased with my performance," said the Canadian on reaching the finish line first according to the official race website.

Tour de Slovenie, prologue top 5:

1. Svein Tuft, Orica-Green Edge 9.55
2. Brett Lancaster, Orica-Green Edge 10.01
3. Artem Ove�kin, RusVelo 10.02
4. Sebastian Langeveld, Orica-Green Edge 10.08
5. Adriano Malori Lampre-Merida 10.11