Saxo Tinkoff's Roman Kreuziger won the Amstel Gold Race.
After the Belgian Classics, the cycling season on the day the UCI celebrates its centenary, moved onto the Ardennes Classic.
First up is the always popular Amstel Gold Race, a race in its 48th year, over 251kms and one that tests the riders climbing ability with 34 climbs to negotiate.
Last years winner - Enrico Gasperotto of Astana led the rider out of Maastrict and five in Tim De Troyer (Accent Jobs-Wanty), Alexandre Pliuschin (IAM), Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel), Arthur Van Overberghe (Topsport Vlaanderen) and Johan Vansummeren (Garmin-Sharp) quickly built a lead of 4.45.
The five continued to extend their lead and were joined by Nicholas Vogony (Accent Jobs) and Klass Sys (Crelan) who had chased them down from early on,
With 100kms of racing gone, the leaders were 10.55 clear whilst back in the peloton, crashes started to happen.
Paul Martens (Blanco), Brian Blugac (Lotto-Belisol) and Vasil Kiryienka (Sky), all hit the deck as did Peter Velits of Omega Pharma-QuickStep before another crash took down fifteen riders including Philippe Gilbert and Andy Schleck with 94kms left.
Schleck and Gilbert got back into the pack and this took the leaders gap down to 7.55.
With 65kms to go, the gap to Tim De TroyeTim De Troyer (Accent Jobs-Wanty), Alexandre Pliuschin (IAM), Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel), Arthur Van Overberghe (Topsport Vlaanderen), Johan Vansummeren (Garmin-Sharp), Klaas Sys (Crelan-Euphony) and Nicolas Vogondy (Accent Jobs-Wanty).was just 4.52.
Punto, Rodriquez and Michael Matthews crashed before the riders took on the Kruisberg climb as did Europcar's Thomas Voeckler who had a suspected fractured shoulder.
On the next Fromberg climb, Peter Weening attacked in a move which split the field.
Roman Kreuziger (Saxo-Tinkoff) attacked with twenty kilometres to go and joined Van Summeren and Pliushin in chasing Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel), who was now leading this race .
Astarloza was caught with 17kms remaining and joined by Grivko, Nordhaug, Caruso, Weening, Kreuziger and Marcato.
With eight to go, Ryder Hesjesdal tried to join the escapers and as this was going off, Roman Kreuziger went off on his own. The Czech went over the final Cauberg climb and coasted to victory in 6.35.21 ahead of Valverde, Gerrans and Gilbert who had battled for second place for the last two kilometres.
Kreuziger told Eurosport; "This was a big surprise but the team was excellent and at the end so were my legs, so I am really happy to take the win.
"The team tactic for today was to do good in the race with me and Nicky Sorensen and we had to expect to help out Karsten Krone so we saved a lot of energy and maybe this energy was what I needed in the final.
"I could hear the people call my name on the Cauberg and I did my best. I saw that I had twenty seconds and I went for it."