Kris Boeckmans of Lotto Soudal has taken victory in the opening stage of the Etoile de Bessèges.
A 2,1 five stage race in France started with a 152km stage from Bellegarde to Beaucaire started on a day of rain, snow and wind with a breakaway of around twenty riders who had a lead of forty five seconds with ten kilometres gone.
That extended to twenty eight riders including Bryan Coquard of Europcar, Giacomo Nizzolo of Trek Factory, Tony Gallopin of Lotto Soudal, Jon Hivert of Bretagne SE, Michael Van Staeyen of Cofidis, Romain Feillu of Bretagne SE and Roy Jans of Wanty Group, who were 1.10 clear after twenty two kilometres.
Over the category two mountain sprint on the Côte de la Tour after 37 kms and the gap had gone out to two minutes to a peloton which was without Stefan Schumacher of Polish side CCC Sprandi who had abandoned.
Belgian registered An Post and Team Colombia worked in the peloton and the gap had dropped to 1.30 with eighty kilometres remaining.
Julien Loubet (Team Marseille) took the mountain sprint on the Côte de la Tour after 99.3kms as the gap went out to 1.50.
The peloton split and a counter attack got to within 45 seconds of the group of escapers, with the peloton 1.25 behind.
The escapers crossed the finishing line for the first time, starting four 6.6km closing laps and were joined by the front group to form a fifty two rider strong group which had a 1.30 lead over what was left of the peloton.
Twelve riders attacked with fourteen kilometres remaining. That dropped to eleven and went back up to thirteen and they had a lead of 35 seconds going into the final lap.
Pim Lithgart, who had won the GPLM on Sunday, led but the sprint came and there was Kris Boeckmans of Lotto Soudal to take the victory ahead of Edward Theuns of Topsport, Marco Coledan of Trek, Cyril Gautier of Europcar and Julien Duval of Armee Du Terre, followed by Siskevicius, Courteille, Gougeard, Chetout and Van Goethem.