Team HTC-Highroad's Patrick Gretsch kicked of the 2011 USA Pro Cycling Challenge with a victory today in the prologue's individual time trial in Colorado Springs. Gretsch finished ahead of Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Cervélo) and Brent Bookwalter (Team BMC Racing) for the second win of his professional career.

"It was a very beautiful course with the mountains," Team Garmin-Cervelo sport director Brian Holm commented after the stage and added "Which also gave us very fast downhills. It was a slower start but they were picking up a lot of speed in the middle. Then at about five [kilometers] to the finish it was pretty flat, and Gretsch had great form the whole way through."

The best young rider's jersey went to HTC-Highroad's Tejay Van Garderen, who finished seventh, and the most aggressive rider's jersey went to team mate Danny Pate. A clean sweep for Team HTC-HighRoad.

"It's a great result today, I had a feeling one of about four of our guys could take it, but to see three of our guys on the podium is fantastic."

"It's the first leader's jersey the team's ever gotten in Colorado, so we're very proud of it and we don't intend to give it up without a fight."

"The last kilometer had a little uphill kick to it," third place finisher Bookwalter told Roadcycling.com and Roadcycling.mobi and then added "I was paying big for my earlier efforts there. To be only a few seconds off Gretsch, I felt like I did a good time. I might have also gotten a little lucky with the wind than the later guys."

Tour de France champion Cadel Evans finished 9th in today's prologue. Evans said the course "wasn't exactly my thing" and that he felt OK in his first race since winning the Tour de France. "Give me a couple days and I might be able to go all right," Evans concluded.

The HTC-Highroad roster will do their best to defend the leader's jersey tomorrow against what Holm describes as a "very smart field" of riders.