Team Sky's Ben Swift finished second to Nacer Bouhanni of Cofidis on the opening stage of the Volta a Catalunya.
The opening stage was a 175.8km stage which started and finished in Calella and saw Luis Mas (Caja Rural), Boris Dron (Wanty) and Cameron Meyer (Dimension Data) go clear and take a five minute lead after 25kms.
The lead maxed at six minutes as Wilco Kelderman abandoned and Meyer was first over the l'Alt de les Guilleries.
Meyer was also first over the l'Alt de Viladrau with 95kms to go but the gap was starting to drop and after 120kms, it was down to a minute.
Five klometres later on the descent of the third climb and the break was caught and it was Jesus Herrada who was first over the Alt del Montseny climb.
Preidler (Giant), Bouet and Verona (Etixx), Bookwalter (BMC), Frank (IAM) and Domont (AG2R) were now leading the race and had a lead of fifty seconds with twenty kilometres to go.
Team Sky brought the group back and sent Nicholas Roche up the road and it came down to a sprint which Nacer Bouhanni of Cofidis won in a time of 4:28:511 ahead of Team Sky's Ben Swift and Darryl Impey of Orica GreenEdge.
Bouhanni said after his win: "I saw myself losing Milan-San Remo at 200 metres from the line, my dream was broken. It was a nightmare.
"I’ve won today but I’ve still got that bad feeling about what happened in San Remo,”