Giant Shimano's Marcel Kittel won the Scheldeprijs Classic race.
Another big race in the Belgian Classics season, the Scheldeprijs is a one day race of 200kms from Antwerp to Schoten, taking in a 154km loop of Northern Flanders.
With Mark Cavendish still not well enough to race and Zedenek Stybar opting for a training ride instead, there was still a top quality field for this race which saw Gediminas Bagdonas (AG2R), Mattia Pozzo (Neri Sottoli) and Daniel Summerhill (UnitedHealthcare) in the first attack of the day and Team Sky's Luke Rowe in the second attack along with Gruzdev, Bazzana, Ghyselink and Balykin.
After twenty five kilometres, this group had taken a lead of 4.08 which went out to five minutes after an hour's racing of average speeds of 45km/h.
Their lead was still four minute by the time they reached a level crossing and had to wait to let a train pass. This delayed the leaders for two minutes but after the peloton were stopped and held for two minutes, their four minute lead was restored.
FDJ and Belkin started to bring the gap down and with forty kilometres remaining the gap was at 2.25.
Rowe lead the escapers on to the final lap of a 16.4km circuit with a lead of 1.30.
With the gap at fifty seconds, Luke Rowe decided to go on the attack with seven kilometres remaining.
Rowe had a good go but was caught with 2.5kms left and it went down to the sprint which Marcel Kittel of Giant Shimano won, ahead of Farrar, Van Poppel, Petacchi, Bennett, Appollonio, Napolitano, Guardini, Martinez and Pelucchi