World Champion Peter Sagan of Tinkoff has won the Gent-Wevelgem classic race in Belgium.
A 243km race which took the riders on a course up towards the Belgian coast and into southern Flanders for the double loop around the Kemmelberg.
There was no Ian Stannard in the race with Team Sky reporting that the former British Road Race Champion was ill but those who did start in Deinze included Pavel Brutt, Lieuwe Westra, Jonas Rickaert and Josef Cerny who were in the first break of the day.
With 178kms to go, the quartet had a lead of eleven minutes but forty seven kilometres later, it was down to two minutes.
The peloton had split but was back to one bunch with 88kms to go and Dimension Data on the front working to bring the gap down to 48 seconds.
With just over fifty kilometres to go, the break was caught and Vyacheslav Kuznetsov (Katusha) went on a solo raid taking fifty seconds.
On the Baneberg, Sep Vanmarcke shot out of the peloton before being chased down by Peter Sagan and Fabian Cancellera, who then made a gap on the descent of the Kemmelberg.
Sagan, Cancellara and Vanmarcke bridged to Kuznetsov with 32.5km to go and seven kilometres later, had a lead of 29 seconds.
That extended to 37 seconds with 15kms remaining and forty four seconds with 7.5kms left.
The four stayed clear and it came down to a sprint which Peter Sagan took ahead of Sep Vanmarcke, Kuznetsov and Cancellera, followed by Demare, Gaviria, Roelandts, Guarnieri, Van Avermaet and Morkov.