Argos Shimano's John Degenkolb won the Tour de l'Eurométropole (Circuit Franco/Belge) second stage.
One hundred and eighty riders observed a minutes silence for cyclo cross rider Amy Dombroski, who was killed in an accident yesterday before the start of the second 172.5k stage which started and finished in Poperinge.
It was a stage that saw Team Europcar on bikes lent by Wallonie-Bruxelles & Color Code-Biowanze after their bikes had been stolen and two attacks early on with the second seeing Lander, Vrecer, Van Zyl, Koretzky, Corbel, Hoogerland and Scheirlinckx get away.
Robert Vrecer of Euskatel took the first GPM maximum of six points after eight kilometres but was fifth at the second GPM after 29.2kms.
With a lead of 3.12, Jonny Hoogerland of Vacansoleil, took the six points after 51.3kms whilst riders such as Selig,Pelucchi and Howard abandoned.
There were six more points for Hoogerland, the most combative rider of the day, at the fourth GPM checkpoint and three at the fifth.
The peloton was now split into the three groups with the leaders having 31 seconds before they were caught and Jelle Wallays of Topsport, took both the sixth GPM checkpoint and the first sprint of the day.
With Gerald Ciolek of MTN Qhubeka abandoning, there was a lead group of eighteen riders and out of this group, Laurens Devreese took the seventh checkpoint and the second sprint with two points for Danish rider Michael Morkov making him the virtual race leader ahead of Jens Debusschere by two seconds.
Omega Pharma's Niki Terpstra, Ramon Sinkeldam of Argos Shimano and Katusha's Viacheslav Kuznetsov took to the front, with 32 kms remaining.
Terpstra took the eighth checkpoint and the trio were still leading with three kilometres to go. They had a twenty four second lead but going under the flam rouge, they were caught and out of fifteen riders, Argos Shimano's John Degenkolb came through to snatch the victory ahead of Jempy Drucker and Lotto Bellisol's Jens Debusschere, who leads the race by a single second.
"Today was a good day, it was tricky to be smart enough and not waste too much energy while marking the important moves but we did a perfect job," said a very happy Degenkolb after the finish to the Argos Shimono press office. "Yesterday I felt still a bit tired after the Worlds, but today I felt better and I am very happy that I could finish off the excellent teamwork today.
"When Ramon was in the break we knew he had a good chance as he was the fastest, but unfortunately the other guys in the break didn't want to ride with him. It would have been good if he could have battled for the win himself.
"From now on we will take it stage-by-stage and see how we get on in the GC. It will be a fight with bonus seconds, but hopefully we can repeat today's success."