Lotto Bellisol's Jens Debusschere won the opening stage of the 2013 Tour de l'Eurométropole (Circuit Franco-Belge).
A 194.8km stage from La Louvière to Moorslede was today's fare for a strong field in this four stage race in its 73rd running, which will see 685.1kms of racing for the 192 riders.
Eight riders made the first break but by 12.5kms, this had been nullified and BMC's Sebastian Lander and Anthony Delaplace of Sojasun took over front running duties for a bit, until Van Hoecke and De Vreese replaced them.
With just under fifty kilometres gone, attacks started all over the road and Morkov, Lindeman, Mestre, Wallays, Goddaert and Amorison were able to get away.
Amorison took the first checkpoint, Wallays the second as their gap went out to 3.38 before Amorison took the next three checkpoints with 76.2kms of the stage gone.
Morkov picked up five points for being first at the sprint line as the gap steadied at around 2.40 with Lotto Bellisol doing most of the chasing of what had dropped to five escapers.
With 57kms to go and Gaudin becoming the third rider to abandon the stage, the gap was down to 1.17 as Morkov took the second sprint.
Amorison took three more checkpoints and Morkov the third sprint but with six kilometres to go, the escapers were caught and the teams start to position themselves for the final sprint.
Inside the final kilometre, there was a crash with MTN's Johann Van Zyl hitting the deck, but Jens Debusschere of Lotto Bellisol avoided the carnage and took the win ahead of Maes and Vanbilsen.