Roy Curvers sprinted to 10th on stage of the l’Eurometropole Tour. Jens Debusschere won the stage from a bunch sprint. Six riders escaped during the early phase of the first stage in line that went from La Louviére to Chiévres and covered 164km. Towards the final hour the bunch accelerated to chase the leaders back, which succeeded at 30km from the finish.

In the finale several attempts to break away were neutralized and a bunch sprint was inevitable. Jens Debusschere (Lotto Soudal) was the fastest today, as Curverssprinted to 10th place.

After the stage coach Addy Engels explained: “Our plan was to go for the early break in case an interesting group would go, which wasn’t the case.

“Because the finale wasn’t very suitable for a late attack, we chose to go for Roy in the sprint and he took 10th. Zico abandoned because his knee pain became worse.”