BMC's Thor Hushovd won the opening stage of the Third Tour Of Beijing.
The final race of the season in the UCI World Tour calendar saw a 190.5km stage from Shunyi Olympic Rowing Park to Huairou Studio City and featured three sprints and one category three climb and included a top field including World Champion Rui Costa of Movistar and Time Trial World Champion Tony Martin but no Chris Froome or UCI Ranking Winner Joaquim Rodriquez..
Four riders in Davide Vigano of Lampre, Sander Cordeel of Lotto Bellisol, Wiiliam Wauters of Vacansoleil and Ryota Rishono of Champion Systems, who are joining Eustkatel and Vacansoleil in folding, took a nine minute lead on a warm day with Vigano taking the first sprint after 39.5kms.
After 71 kilometres of racing, there was the first King Of The Mountains climb and Sander Cordeel beat Waulters to the three points before Waulters took the second sprint.
With 56kms remaining, the peloton's lead was down to 2.30 and heading towards the third sprint in Mi Yun Town, the four up front was down to three when David Vigano dropped back to the peloton.
Waulters took the third sprint as the trio's lead steadied at around the 2.08 mark.
There was twenty nine kilometres remaining when Sander Cordeel decided that he had enough in his tank to launch a solo bid for the win and off he went, extending his lead to 2.40.
BMC took to the front on the run in to Beijing and with five kilometres to go, Cordeel was caught.
Riders were quickly brought into position and this set up a bunch sprint which Norwegian Thor Hushovd won in a time of 4.20.35 by creating a gap for himself after following a Movistar rider.
Second was Argos Shimano's Luka Mezgec with Nikolas Maes third, followed by Petacchi and Michael Matthews.
Hushovd said after the race: "It was a good win and I surprised myself after the World Championships. BMC did a great job and it was up to me to do my job and it worked out perfectly."