The curtain raiser of the three week race took place with an evening start in Torrevieja, with the first stage providing drama.

Astana proved the fastest team in the 18 kilometre team time trial with Colombia’s Lopez, Spain’s Luis Leon Sanchez and Denmark’s Jakob Fuglsang among the key riders in their effort.

Supported by Italy’s Dario Cataldo and Spanish brothers Ion and Gorka Izagirre, the team set a time of 14min 51sec at the finish.

The Kazakhstan registered team finished just two seconds faster than Deceuninck-QuickStep, whose squad included Belgian star Philippe Gilbert.

Deceuninck-QuickStep were left ruing an incident during their effort, with their team forced to swerve around other race vehicles on the course, which may have prevented the opening stage win.

Astana also celebrated Lopez taking the race leader’s red jersey after being the first rider to cross the line.

Team Sunweb placed third on the stage at five seconds down, while the stage’s early pace setters EF Education First were fourth at seven seconds slower than the eventual winners.

Team Jumbo-Visma endured a nightmare start to the race, their squad suffering a heavy crash on a corner.

Their team leader Roglic, considered among the key contenders for the general classification, was among those to crash.

The Slovenian ultimately finished the stage with his team, but will have concerns over whether any injuries sustained could impact him over the coming weeks.

Roglic’s most pressing concern is the time gap created by the crash, with Team Jumbo-Visma ending 50 seconds off the pace of the stage winners.

The final Grand Tour of the season is due to continue tomorrow with a 193km stage from Benidorm to Calpe.