Belgium's Thomas De Gendt won the opening stage of the Paris-Nice classic this afternoon.
The race started today with a 154.5km stage that started and finished in Houdan.
The stage saw two main breaks with the second starting with 35km to go. This contained the following three riders - Jens Voigt (Leopard Trek), Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil) and Jeremy Roy (FDJ) and they stayed cleared as the race headed back in to Houdan.
With three kilometres to go, the trio had a twenty second gap over a chasing peleton headed by HTC and Team Sky speared headed by Geraint Thomas who took a flyer to try and catch them.
However, Vacansoleil's Thomas De Gendt kept strong and had the best sprint of the three to get over the line first ahead of Roy, Heinrich Haussler, Peter Sagan and Greg Henderson in a time of 4hr, 4 mins and 53 seconds.
"I still can't believe it, we only had thirty seconds but they didn't catch us. I knew with Jens Voigt in the break we had a little chance so we took it." said De Gendt to Eurosport after the race.
Stage Two tomorrow is from Montfort l’Amaury to Amilly and can be seen on Eurosport.
Saxo Bank's Alberto Contador won the three stage Vuelta Ciclista a la Region de Murcia in Spain today when he was fastest to win the time final stage 12.4km time trial.