Australian Bradley McGee won a drama-filled prologue - a 6.5km time trial held around the Eiffel Tower - to claim the first yellow jersey of the 90th edition of the Tour de France.

Despite succumbing to a puncture in the final 500 metres of the race against the clock, the 27-year-old Aussie held on to finish in a time of 7min26.16secs.

David Millar, who rides for Cofidis, came second although the 26-year-old Scot, the prologue winner in 2000, will be ruing missing pulling on the centenary yellow jersey after his chain slipped off in the final 500 metres.

Millar finished only eight hundredths of a second behind McGee in 7:26.24 however his disaster - following his crash in the time trial last year - effectively cost him the yellow jersey.

Olympic road race champion Jan Ullrich (Bianchi), making his return to the race after being absent through injury last year, came third with four-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong, wearing the yellow jersey, placing seventh at just over seven seconds adrift of McGee's time.

McGee, the world individual pursuit champion in track, had said in the days leading up to the centenary Tour that it would be a "dream come true" if he managed to confirm his good time trialling form of late by winning the prologue.

And the Nice-based Aussie, who won the prologue in the Tour of Switzerland in impressive style two weeks ago, was lost for words as he tried to take in the feat he had achieved.

"I don't know what to say, I'm literally lost for words," said McGee, who won his first Tour de France stage last year.

"This is the biggest thing for me, to me it's even bigger than the Olympic Games.

"I'm in another world at the moment - but it feels great."

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