Arnaud Demare wrapped up the overall of the Tour de l”Eurometropole, outsprinting Jens Debusschere of Lotto Belisol and a fast finishing Tyler Farrar of Garmin-Sharp. With the win, he secures the overall as well.

The final stage of the Tour de l’Eurometropole got underway in cold but dry conditions today as Arnaud Demare looked to defend his six second lead on the GC to Theo Bos in a stage suited to a bunch sprint at the finish in Tournai.

KOM leader Tom Dernies (Wallonie-Bruxelles) attacked in order to get moe points to ensure victory in his classification and he was joined by Romain Pillon, Jimmy Turgis (Roubaix-Lille Métropole), Jasper De Buyst (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Rob Ruijgh (Vastgoedservice-Golden Palace) and Lasse Norman Hansen (Garmin-Sharp). Nicolas Dougall of MTN-Qhubeka set off in pursuit of the group.

Dernies took the first KOM ahead of Hansen and Turgis and Hansen reversed the result at the second KOM, with Ruijgh in third. Meanwhile, Dougall reqlised that he couldn’t catch the group who were working so well together and he was soon recaptured by the peloton.

Dernies wrapped up the KOM by winning the third one ahead of Pillon and Turgis as with 69km to go the group had 2’10 on the FDJ led peloton.

As the gap went under a minute, De Buyst, who has recently signed for Lotto-Soudal for 2015, accelerated and this caught out Pillon, who had to chase back on as De Buyst crossed the final KOM ahead of Dernies and Ruijgh. 

But the effort was all for nothing and with 45km to go, it was all back together again.

This meant the peloton would contest the first sprint of the day, and Tinkoff-Saxo’s Matti Breschel raced clear of Orica’s Jens Keukeleire and Jonas Van Genechten of Lotto.

After a fast descent from the sprint, Sander Cordeel (Vastgoedservice Golden Palace) attacked with Bretagne Seche’s Christophe Laborie and an Orica Greenedge led peloton seemed content to let them go.

But 10 minutes later, the whole Tinkoff-Saxo team came to the head of the bunch and with 27km remaining, it was all back together once more.

The same trio who took the first sprint finished in the same order at the next sprint at 25km to go. As everything began to settle down after the sprint, Garmin’s Tour of Britain winner Dylan Van Baarle decided to take his leave from the peloton and this sparked a big reaction in the bunch that tried to chase him down.

Once again Tinkoff-Saxo massed to the front of the bunch and brought back Van Baarle. They drove into the final ascent of the Croix Jubaru and Breschel took it up, but he had to do so too early and Van Genechten jumped him for first, with Breschel second and Keukeleire was third across the line.

From that sprint, seven men broke free: Stybar (OPQS), Breschel (Tinkoff), Van Genechten, Benoot (Lotto), Keukeleire (Orica), Leukemans (Wanty) and Stuyven (Trek). They had 14 seconds heading into the final 5km. they had 11 seconds with 4km to go and the bunch was getting closer but FDJ were running out of men at the front for Demare.

Stybar, who was 24 seconds down at the start of the day, attacked and was joined by Jasper Stuyven as the bunch swallowed up the rest of the break. Leukemans also managed to make the bridge to the two leaders to make it a trio inside the last 2km. but with 1.5km to go, it was all over as FDJ made the bridge to the duo and it would come down to the bunch sprint to decide the overall and the stage.

Lotto and Topsport led under the flame rouge and Van Genechten did well for Debusschere but he didn’t have enough as Demare came round him for the win to seal the GC. Tyler Farrar 9Garmin) just beat Danny van Poppel of Trek.