Maciej Paterski of CCC Sprandi has won the opening stage of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
With former Tour France winners Chris Froome and Alberto Contador taking part, the 2015 race started with a 185.2km stage which started and finished in Calella and featured a category one climb - the Alt de Coll Formic.
The peloton was altogether for the first twenty kilometres which included the first sprint which saw Poels take the three points ahead of Nicholas Roche and his cousin Danny Martin.
Ten riders in Vorobyev, Senni, Polanc, De Gendt, Frohlinger, Keizer, Laborie, Loic, Sarmiento and Rolland got into a break before being brought back with 52kms gone.
Keiser took the second sprint before a new break of Bart De Clercq of Lotto Soudale, Maciej Paterski of CCC Sprandi and Pierre Rolland of Europcar.
They led by 2.15 after sixty three kilometres but fifteen kilometres, they had been allowed to extend their lead to a staggering thirteen minutes.
That lead dipped under twelve minutes with eighty kilometres to go but was still at 9.30 with thirty three kilometres left.
With four kilometres left, their lead was out to 4.20 and that was enough for Maciej Paterski to take the victory in 4.33.41 ahead of De Clerq who was two seconds behind.
The wait was on for the peloton and two minutes and 2.40 later, they rolled in led by Van Der Sande, followed by Alaphilippe and Tiralongo.
"I have fulfilled one of my biggest dreams, a victory in a World Tour race and I am so glad," said Paterski to his team's website.
"Throughout the day, my legs very well work, but in the last ten kilometres, they were cramping up. I felt dehydrated and In the end I tried to just "spin", without pressing too hard on the pedals. It helped. At the very end I had to forget the pain and focus only on the sprint.
"We now have a jersey and we will try to keep it as long as possible. We have several possibilities, because we also lead the mountains classification and points scoring but we will come up with a specific strategy in the coming days."