Former Tour de France sprint king Erik Zabel admitted his glory days on the race could be on the wane as one of his biggest rivals took a share in one of his records.

Australian Robbie McEwen shrugged off a crash to dominate a bunch sprint and win the first stage of the race held over 203km from London to here on Sunday.

McEwen now has 12 stage victories from the Tour, meaning he has equaled a long-held achievement of Zabel, who until Sunday held the record of having the most stage wins on the Tour for an active rider.

Zabel, who celebrated his 37th birthday during Saturday's prologue, is a legend on the race, having won six consecutive green jerseys for the points competition.

However the former Telekom and T-Mobile rider, who is now with the Milram team, has not won a stage on the Tour since 2002.

And he made all the wrong headlines two months ago after admitting he had once used the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin).

Milram was struck another blow prior to the Tour when its top sprinter, Italian Alessandro Petacchi, was pulled from the race following an Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) probe into his positive test for the asthma drug salbutamol at the Giro d'Italia.

That has left Zabel as the man who is supposed to go out and beat the likes of McEwen, Tom Boonen, Thor Hushovd and Oscar Freire.

But now, he's not so sure.

"I'm proud of my 12 stage wins on the Tour de France but my chances (of winning more) are not as good as they used to be. Maybe I'm getting a little old," Zabel told AFP.

"I'm really more of a lead-out man for Petacchi. I really have no choice, but I think he is the fastest in the world."

Zabel said he was happy for McEwen, and although he will be hoping to do enough to limit the Australian's success here, he admitted his team have suffered further blows.

"Of course McEwen is one of the fastest guys too. He's a problem for us, but he's not our only problem," added the German. "Our team is weaker. Brett Lancaster has been sick, and today he crashed. And Petacchi has problems with the CONI."

Lancaster, Australia's Olympic champion, came crashing down late in the race, hurting his back after colliding with a traffic beacon in the middle of the road.

He said, however, he was delighted to have finished at all, saying that he almost didn't start because of a stomach bug that kept him awake most of the night.

While sure McEwen will go on to dominate, he hopes to help Zabel limit the damage.

"For sure Robbie is going to overtake Erik. He'll probably pop back up and win another one or two. But hopefully Zabel will win a couple too."