Lotto's Jurgen Roelandts won the opening stage of the l'Eurometropole Tour on Thursday.
This four day race, more commonly known as the Tour De Wallonie Picarde, started in La Louviere, a place once visited by Coventry City for a 1-1 pre-season game and featured a number of British and Irish riders,
Team Sky fielded four Brits in Jeremy Hunt, Ben Swift, Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas, with Adam Blythe riding for BMC, Andy Fenn for Omega Pharma, Mark McNally of An Post, whilst the Irish riders were Mehdi Sohrabi of Lotto and Sam Bennett and Ronan McLoughlin of An Post.
Unfortunately, Jeremy Hunt was forced to abandon as was Mark McNally in a 165.8km stage from La Louvière to Menin which saw Jurgen Roelandts who had been one of the seven escapers, get away.
Roelandts won in a time of 3.44.22 beating Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Maarten Wynants (Rabobank) in third and Team Sky's Juan Antonio Flecha who was fourth.
Ben Swift was the top British rider finishing in 19th place. .