Giant Shimano's Marcel Kittel has won the Ster ZLM Toer Second Stage.
The first road stage after the opening prologue won by Philippe Gilbert was a 183.9km stage from Rucphen to Sint Willebrord and saw Testi, Vermote, Roosen & van het Schip establish a break after ten kilometres.
After 45kms, that lead was 4.50 but was down to 2.10 inside the final fifty kilometres with Lotto Belisol doing the chasing and 1.10 with 25kms left.
The rain started to come down and this slowed up the escapers who were caught with ten kilometres remaining.
Omega Pharma Quick Step and Garmin Sharp got riders into the next main attack but up came Giant Shimano with five riders and they set up Marcel Kittel for the win in 4.19.44 beating Tyler Farrar and Gianni Meersman.
With the time bonuses on the line, Kittel now leads the race and told his team's press office: "I'm really happy with today as I didn't feel that good early on and it took about 100km for the legs to open up. After this the feeling started to come back and as a team we nailed it today.
"The first job was staying together in the wet conditions but we managed this fine and then in the final we were in formation and did just what we had planned - they set me up in a great position. I was at the front of the bunch when I started my sprint and the pace was already high so this made a big difference.
"I had a really good training period at altitude prior to this race but I still need a few race days to get the intensity back up and to get back into the rhythm but it's great to get going with a win again."