Hansen wins Ster Elektrotoer

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Kris Boeckmans of Topsport Vlaanderen took the final mass sprint victory in the Ster Elektrotoer, as Adam Hansen of HTC-Columbia won the first stage race of his road career. Boeckmans outsprinted Denis Galimzyanov of Katusha and Andre Greipel of HTC-Columbia to win the 174km finale in Helmond.

"Adam said he specifically wanted to ride this race rather than doing the Tour de Suisse, and he certainly made a good choice," said HTC-Columbia's sports director Tristan Hoffman. "After doing so well on Saturday's stage, he became the team leader for the race, and he gave it everything he could to make sure he could win.

"The final stage was totally flat, and we managed to control the early breaks with help from the other sprinters' teams and keep things together. But then Adam had a mechanical problem and the whole team waited for him and made sure he got back to the bunch. It was important to work for a bunch sprint for André [Greipel] , but we wanted to be sure Adam got his first stage race win, too."

A three-rider group, comprised of Niki Terpstra (Milram), Bart van Haaren (Van Vliet EBH Elshof) and Jens Mouris (Vacansoleil), escaped on the final day for much of the stage, but never built up a huge lead.

A crash with 63km to go took down overall leader Adam Hansen, but five teammates gathered to get him back to the peloton. Not so lucky was Eric Berthou (CarmioOro NGC), who left the race in an ambulance.

Van Haaren couldn't keep up the pace of his two companions and fell back with 36km to go. With 10km to, Terpstra and Mouris were caught as well which set up the mass sprint to conclude the stage.