Hushovd takes Tour de France lead

LES ESSARTS, France -- Thor Hushovd of Norway captured the overall lead at the Tour de France Sunday after his Garmin-Cervelo team won the time trial in the second stage of the race.

Hushovd took the yellow jersey from Philippe Gilbert of Belgium, the winner of Saturday's opening stage, as defending champion Alberto Contador lost more time to his main rivals.

World champion Hushovd seized the coveted yellow shirt for the third time of his career ahead of his teammate David Millar, with whom he shares the same time in the overall standings. Cadel Evans of Australia is third, just a second behind.

The Garmin-Cervelo team finished in 24 minutes, 48 seconds around the 14.3-mile flat stage in Les Essarts in the Vendee region of western France. It was Garmin-Cervelo's first stage win on the Tour after the American-registered outfit finished second in the 2009 team time trial.

"This is an extraordinary dream, I'm very proud, I'm very happy to take the jersey and that the team won the stage," Hushovd said. "This is a great day, we did a really good team effort."

"It was really hard work," Millar said. "We didn't hide. It was a main goal for us and we worked hard for this. We know each other well, it's a big advantage. I was constantly above my limits, as were my teammates."

Garmin team manager Jonathan Vaughters, a former teammate of Lance Armstrong, has developed a strong time trial culture within his team.

"They didn't make any mistakes," Vaughters said. "They did everything perfectly. I knew we were going to go fast."

On the short and mainly flat course, Contador's Saxo-Bank team posted a time of 25:16. The three-time Tour champion had already lost more than a minute to his rivals during the first stage after being slowed down by a crash and stands 75th, 1:42 behind Hushovd.