The 21st edition of Canada's premier stage race, the Tour de Beauce, began on Tuesday with a 164 kilometer stage through the rolling hills south of Quebec City. Valeriy Kobzarenko (Navigators Insurance) won the stage and yellow jersey of race leader after dropping three breakaway companions in the final five kilometers of the stage.

Kobzarenko finished 21 seconds ahead of second place Fausto Esparza Munoz (Tecos Trek VH), who out sprinted Kobzarenko's teammate Sergey Lagutin and Stefan Parinussa of the German Team Sparkasse. The first of the small groups which made up the remnants of the peloton rolled across the finish line 2:23 behind Kobzarenko.

Many of the riders were hoping for an easy ride, coming off the Commerce Bank Triple Crown series finale in Philadelphia on Sunday, but attacks began immediately. Three riders carved out a lead of three minutes by the first KoM - Peter Woestenberg (Team Altipower), Jean-Sébastien Perron (Calyon-Litespeed) and Will Frischkorn (TIAA-CREF).

A chase group of eight joined them, including Walters, Glen Chadwick (Navigators), David O'Loughlin (Navigators) and Danny Pate (TIAA-CREF), but this was too much and Symmetrics went to the front to pull everything back together.

After a brief pause in the action, what proved to be the winning move went clear, initiated by Triple Crown winner Sergey Lagutin. "It was maybe 50 kilometers from the finish" explained Kobzarenko, "when Sergey went I was on his wheel, then two others joined us."

The break steadily increased their lead over the gradually climbing terrain, to just under three minutes with 10 kilometers to go. On the final short steep climb 5 kilometers from the finish Kobzarenko put in a hard effort and a gap opened up to Munoz riding second wheel. With the encouragement of team Director Ed Beamon, Kobzarenko powered through to the finish.

"Valeriy has been doing a incredible amount of work for the team" commented Beamon, "so given this opportunity we wanted him to take the win if possible."

Behind the four leaders "everything exploded on the last two climbs", explained Dominique Rollin (Team Canada). "In the last 10 kilometers it was all small groups, coming across the line, each one another 10, 20 seconds behind the one in front."

Race NotesLagutin takes the white Points jersey, Frischkorn the Climbers jersey, Jairo Salas Atehortua (Colombia ES Pasion) the red Young Rider's jersey and Walters the Blue jersey of top Canadian.Beamon is unsure of how hard Navigators will defend the jersey tomorrow. "This is a difficult race to control, so we will have to look at all our options. this is certainly not the race where you want to have your team riding at the front for six days. But, we have four riders in the top-10, so we have a few cards to play." Kobzarenko is coming back from a few years of serious injury. He is a former Ukrainian road champion, and a silver medalist in the Pursuit at the 1998 world championships. As well, he represented the Ukraine at two Olympic Games. On Wednesday the riders face the longest stage of 180 kilometers, with three rated climbs, followed on Thursday by the feared Mont Megantic stage, which finishes at over 1100 meters, with an average gradient of over 12 percent for the last 5 kilometers.

Results - Stage 1
1. Valeriy Kobzarenko (Ukr), Navigators Insurance 3:49:48
2. Fausto Esparza Munoz (Mex), Tecos Trek Vh at 0:21
3. Sergey Lagutin (Uzb), Navigators Insurance
4. Stefan Parinussa (Ger), Team Sparkasse both s.t.
5. Jairo Salas Atehortua (Col), Colombia Es Pasion 2:23
6. David O'loughlin (Irl), Navigators Insurance
7. Danny Patte (USA), Team Tiaa-Cref
8. John Fredy Parra Calada (Col), Tecos Trek Vh
9. Cesar Augusto Grajales (Col), Navigators Insurance all s.t.
10. Jairo Hernandez (Col), Colombia Es Pasion 2:26