Elia Viviani of Team Sky has won the opening stage of the Eneco Tour.
This annual race in Belgium and the Netherlands started with a 183.5km stage wihch started and finished in Bolsward.
Veuchelen, De Vreese, Haas, Asselman, Boucher and Denz, were the first to form a break and after twenty one kilometres, they were 7.25 ahead.
Forty kilometres later and the gap had dropped by around two minutes when Nathan Hass took the first sprint.
Lotto Soudal, LottoNL-Jumbo and Trek Factory racing continued to chase down the escapers as Haas took the second Primus sprint.
Then it was onto the Golden Kilometre with three sprints in one kilometre which saw Denz the first, Asselman the second and De Vreese the third with Asselman taking six points over the three sprints.
With fifteen kilometres to go, those in the break were brought back to heel and the peloton got the sprint they wanted with Elia Viviani , avoid a crash and taking victory in 4.06.18 ahead of Danny Van Poppel, RideLondon winner Jean Pierre Drucker and Andre Greipel.
Speaking about his win, Viviani told the Team Sky website: : "We preferred to stay at the front to stay out of all the crashes. In the final kilometre Andy Fenn took me and put me on the best wheel. When I saw Greipel's wheel I took that and I thought 'okay I'm in a good position'.
"When he started to sprint he went very fast, and I thought, 'now I wait a second and then I go'. I think I did 200 metres of a sprint. I had good legs in the final today and after a long gap without races following the Giro this is the best way to start a new second part of the season."