Mark Cavendish floored as Andre Greipel wins Tour of Britain opener

The 161.5-kilometre stage from the south of Glasgow to Castle Douglas saw a tactical sprint finish won by Lotto-Soudal's Greipel, who powered to his fifth Tour of Britain victory in a time of three hours, 52 minutes and 40 seconds ahead of Orica-BikeExchange's Caleb Ewan and Team Giant-Alpecin's Ramon Sinkeldam.

However, Team Dimension Data's Cavendish was involved in a crash which also included Team Sky's Olympic omnium champion Elia Viviani in the last kilometre on a tight corner as teams tried to assemble their riders into a position to challenge.

ONE Pro Cycling's Peter Williams, who won both the white and green jerseys last year, was among the early pace-setters along with An Post-Chain Reaction pair Emiel Wastyn and Jasper Bovenhuis, Jonathan McEvoy (NFTO) and Tom Moses (JLT Condor) as they attacked the three categorised climbs in Scotland.

Meanwhile, Dimension Data, LottoNL-Jumbo, Orica-BikeExchange and then Team Sky were all lined up on the front of the peloton with 21km to go as they closed the gap to 45 seconds.

The breakaway riders were eventually caught in the final 10km with Lotto Soudal and Trek-Segafredo leading from the front before Team Dimension Data finally made their move to bring Cavendish into prime position for a strong finish.

Team Sky, led by Viviani, and Orica-BikeExchange began to strike as teams jostled for position in the final kilometre but as Cavendish and Viviani became casualties on the final corner, Greipel was perfectly placed to streak through and claim the yellow jersey.

Britain's Chris Latham (Team Wiggins) and Dan McLay finished ninth and 10th respectively while Sir Bradley Wiggins was a distant 111th.

Stage two begins in Carlisle before finishing in Kendal.

Greipel told ITV4: "It's really nice to start off this Tour of Britain with a victory and now we reached our goal for the first day and everything else is on top.

"I've done six weeks of training after the Tour de France and this race is really important towards the next goal (October's Road World Championships). The Tour of Britain is quite a tough race, but it's the right moment in the race calendar.

"We reached this yellow jersey on our shoulders together. James (Shaw) did a really good job of chasing the breakaway and all of the rest tried to get me in front on the final corner and we did it perfectly with even six guys, which is not easy in a race like that but we managed to do so and I'm really proud of the guys."