Alexander Kristoff completed a hat-trick when he won a third successive stage in the Three Days Of De Panne race in Belgium.
Stage 3A was a 111.4km stage that started and finished in De Panne and saw twelve riders in De Ketele, Kerkhof, Lamoisson, Pozzo, Stevens, Tedeschi, Thomson, Van Melsen, Vermeulen, Vinther and Zhupa form the break.
They never managed to get more than 1.20 clear of the peloton which was marshalled by Katusha for race leader Alexander Kristoff and were forty seconds ahead going into the final twenty kilometres.
Tim Stevens rolled through to take the sprint wuth twelve kilometres left as the gap steadied at twenty kilometres.
With seven kilometres left, Kenny Van Melsen tried to get away and was able to put some distance between himself and the break away group, staying away until 1.7kms to go.
Going under the flam rouge and FDJ were leading with Team Sky in their wheel.
Up came Andrei Greipel of Lotto Soudal and Alexander Kristoff and it was a photo finish as they went over the line in 2,28,37.
it took some time before Alexander Kristoff was declared the winner ahead of Greipel, Modolo, Guardini, Mareczko and Ray Kreder.
The win means that Kristoff has a lead of twenty six seconds going into the final time trial this afternoon.
Kristoff said: "I normally lose a bit of time to the time trialists, but I hope to be wearing the leader's jersey this evening."