Veteran Czech sprinter Jan Svorada took victory in the first stage of the Tour de Romandie but Australian Bradley McGee held on to the overall lead.

Svorada won a tight sprint finish against Italy's Marco Zanotti to complete the 175.2km circuit around Yverdon-les-Bains in 4 hours 15 minutes 12 seconds.

Svorada's teammate, Luciano Pagliarini of Brazil, was third.

McGee, who took the yellow jersey in the prologue stage, slightly increased his lead over Olaf Pollack of Germany to seven seconds.

Defending champion Tyler Hamilton of the United States moved up to third place.

It was Ukrainian rider Yuriy Krivtsov who was the subject of attention for most of the first day of open racing.

The 25-year-old broke away after 10km and at one point had a lead of more than 14 minutes over the rest of the field.

The other riders pushed hard to reduce the gap, however, and Krivtsov was finally caught 17km from the finish, having ridden solo for almost 150km.

There followed a series of small breaks, but the stage - the longest of the tour - was always going to be a showpiece for the sprinters.

It didn't go as planned for Italian sprint ace Alessandro Petacchi, however.

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