Vacansoleil's Marco Macato won the Paris-Tours race this afternoon.
This annual classic race, organised by A.S.O, which, this year started in Châteauneuf-en-Thymerais, capital of the Thymerais region, on a 235.5 route east of Le Mans to Tours featured an eleven man early break ahead of a 190 strong field which included Brits Geraint Thomas and Jeremy Hunt of Team Sky along with BMC's Adam Blythe.
After 55kms, they had a lead of four minutes but a hundred kilometres later, that was down to two minutes.
With 35kms to go and Hunt and Thomas abandoning, Saxobank's Michael Morkov attacked and was persued by Topsport's Pieter Serry who caught him and took over at the front as the peloton, lead by Team Sky closed to within thirty seconds.
Then with 20kms remaining, Morkov attacked again. His time at the front lasted for only three kilometres before he was caught and passed by seven riders.
A crash with 12.3km on a tight, narrow country road surrounded by trees, saw a number of riders go down. Niki Terpstra, Laurens De Vreese and Marco Marcato had a lead of seventeen seconds on the Cote de Beau Soleil climb . Adam Blythe set off after them with 8.3kms to go.
Under the flam rouge and the trio were still out in front and it was Vacansoleil's Marco Macato won won in a time of 4.30.35 by half a wheel from Laurens De Vreese with Niki Terpstra third.
Adam Blythe was 15th.