Kazakh rider Assan Bazayev gave the Astana team a much needed boost as he landed the first stage of the Tour of Germany ProTour cycling race, over 198.2km between Dusseldorf and Bielefeld, on Wednesday.

The 25-year-old beat home Lampre's Danilo Napolitano and veteran Germansprint specialist Erik Zabel (Milram) to give the team its first victory under its new sponsor.

The win lifted some of the gloom surrounding the squad since the team was unceremoniously thrown out of the Tour de France on the eve of the race because several of their proposed line-up had been implicated in a doping scandal. Those riders have since been cleared by investigators.

Russian Vladimir Gusev of the Discovery Channel team, winner of Tuesday's prologue, retained the overall leader's jersey ahead of German T-Mobile rider Linus Gerdemann. Astana's team leader Alexandre Vinokourov - who managed to obtain new sponsorship for the team from several Kazakh companies after previous sponsors Liberty Seguros withdrew their patronage because of the scandal - is firmly in contention for overall glory as the Kazakh lies 11th just 11 seconds adrift of Gusev.

1. Assan Bazayev (Kaz), AWT, 04:43:06
2. Danilo Napolitano (I), Lampre, 04:43:06
3. Erik Zabel (G), Milram, 04:43:06
4. André Greipel (G), T-Mobile, 04:43:06
5. Alexandre Usov (Blr), Ag2r Prevoyance, 04:43:06
6. Claudio Corioni (I), Lampre, 04:43:06
7. Vicente Reynes Mimo (Sp), Caisse d'Epargne-I.B., 04:43:06
8. Manuele Mori (I), Saunier Duval, 04:43:06
9. Roy Sentjens (B), Rabobank, 04:43:06
10. Josep Jufre Pou (Sp), Davitamon-Lotto, 04:43:06