Nikias Arndt has taken the top position of the Team Giant-Alpecin riders on the opening stage of the Eneco Tour today with the race coming down to a bunch sprint as expected ahead of the stage.

The hectic finish was won by Elia Viviani (Team Sky) who takes the first leader’s jersey of the race.

The opening road stage was dominated by a six man break that got away early in the day, wrapping up the intermediate sprints classification for the day while building a lead over over six minutes at its peak. This gap soon started to fall in the second half of the stage as the sprinters teams gave chase behind and in the final 15km. From here a bunch sprint was set but this was not before a few crashes disrupted the rhythm of the bunch.

But the race was all together flying into the final hectares as Viviani emerged the fastest in a close sprint for the line.

“The plan for the stage today was to go for the sprint with Nikias,” explained coach Mattias Reck after the stage. “There was a chance that this stage could be a very tough, stressful day since it was on open roads along the coast, but there was almost no wind, so it was mostly a relaxed bunch, besides the last hour when we came into the final laps.

“We did not see it as our job to take responsibility to chase, but we kept a good position in the bunch. We came from a bit too far back, but the team got into a pretty good position in the long 4 km finishing-straight. We did not move forward quick enough at that moment, and therefore lost some places and each other in the run-in. It was a good learning moment for our less experienced riders in the process of helping with lead-outs, and tomorrow we will probably have a new possibility for a lead-out and a sprint.”