Luxembourg ? In the long run, losing the Tour de France lead in Sunday’s first stage could help Lance Armstrong win a fourth straight title.

Switzerland’s Rubens Bertogliati won the stage by sprinting across the finish just ahead of the main pack, which included Armstrong. He also took the leader’s yellow jersey from the Texan, who had won Saturday’s prologue.

It was a virtual certainty that the U.S. Postal Service rider would give up his lead early in the race rather than waste energy trying to keep the yellow jersey. He isn’t expected to bid for a commanding edge until the mountain stages later race, which finishes July 28 in Paris.

“If you have aspirations to have the lead in Paris, holding on to the yellow jersey now is not part of the game plan,” said Dan Osipow, director of operations for Armstrong’s U.S. Postal team. “The jersey not only means more pressure, it means more work to defend it.”

Armstrong has only lost the yellow jersey once before – in 1999, the year of his first Tour title, when he also won the prologue. He regained the lead in the mountains and kept it until the finish.

“Lance Armstrong, tactically, would have an interest in seeing someone else take over the yellow jersey, so that someone else helps him lead the pack until the mountains,” said Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc. That way, Armstrong would save his energy for the Pyrenees and the Alps.

While Armstrong is the overwhelming favorite to win the Tour, the early, flat stages give other teams an opportunity to shine.

“When there is a chance like this to take, you have to go for it,” Bertogliati said after his first ever stage win at the world’s premier cycling event. The Lampre-Daikin rider clocked 4 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds – the same time as the pack of 121 other riders

Taking the yellow jersey, Bertogliati said, “is a dream that has now come true.”

Bertogliati finished with the same time as Armstrong, who placed 30th. But the Swiss rider had 20 bonus seconds taken off for placing first, allowing him to overtake the Texan in the race standings.

German sprint specialist Erik Zabel, of the Telekom team, celebrated his 32nd birthday by placing second. Australia’s Robbie McEwen of the Lotto team was third.

In the overall standings, Frenchman Laurent Jalabert sat in second place, just ahead of Armstrong. Jalabert, of CSC-Tiscali, finished with the same time as Bertogliati but won bonus seconds in an intermediate sprint.

Osipow said Armstrong wants to play it safe, and avoid crashes by riding near the front of the pack to avoid denser, more dangerous areas in back. There were three crashes that entangled small groups of riders in Sunday’s stage. No one was seriously hurt.

“The field is hungry in the first few days, and that’s why you have to be careful about falls, which can be frequent,” French rider Jacky Durand of the fdjeux.com team said before the stage started.

Thousands of fans lined the route to cheer riders for the stage, a 192.5-kilometer (119.35-mile) course through the countryside and medieval towns of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, one of Europe’s smallest countries. The weather was cool and overcast, but the sun poked through the clouds toward the end of the race.

Monday’s second stage was to take riders on a 181-kilometer (112.22 mile) course from Luxembourg to Saarbruecken, Germany through an industrialized, forest-rich region. Weather service Meteo France projected patchy morning fog followed by sunny, warm conditions.