De Bie wins from successful breakaway on opening stage

Belgian Sean De Bie (Ovyta-Eujssen-Acrog) may have been outnumbered in his break of three with two Leopard Trek riders, but still managed to come out on top as the trio narrowly held off the chasing peloton, and he claimed the first leader's jersey of Le Triptyque des Monts et Chateaux.

After an aggressive start to the race in which several lead groups formed only to be pulled back on several climbs, it wasn't until 75km into the 179.5km stage that Modavian road champion Alexander Pliuschin (Leopard Trek Continental) drew out an attack which resulted in a successful breakaway.

Pliuschin was chased by Marc Goos (Rabobank Continental), Boris Valley (Idemasport-Biowanze), Sean De Bie (Ovyta-Eijssen-Acrog), Niels Vandyck (Jong Vlaanderen) and Bob Jungels (Leopard Trek-Continental), but only Jungels and De Bie were able to make the juncture.

A counter-attack of Alexey Lutsenko (Kazakhstan), Kévin Thomé (Wallonie-Bruxelles), Boris Vallée and Quentin Vanheuverswijn (Idemasport-Biowanze), Florian Sénéchal (EFC-Omega Pharma-Quick Step) trailed the trio, which had gained nearly three minutes on the peloton, but were not able to chase to the front.

Finally there was a big surge in the peloton, which split as it caught the second group with around 50km to go.

The trio ahead ignored the drama behind, and set to maintaining a one-minute advantage ahead of the 10km to go mark, and the gap ever so slowly diminished.

With 3km to go, the three still had 25 seconds and began to hope they could hold off the chasers. With 1km to go the gap was not coming down, and De Bie quit working, letting the two Leopard Trek riders set the pace.

Coming to the line with the peloton nipping at their heels, De Bie at last launched his sprint and out-kicked Jungels with Pliuschin, having won KOM, taking third. Behind, the sprint from the peloton was won by Rabobank's Dylan Van Baarle.

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