Alessandro Petacchi (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) has taken his first win for almost two years by emerging as the strongest in the bunch sprint at the GP Pino Cerami. Having been led out by teammate Mark Renshaw, the 40-year-old Italian beat defending champion Jonas Vangenechten (Lotto Belisol) and Danielo Colli (Neri Sottoli) in the uphill bunch sprint to take a maiden win in the colours of his Belgian team.

One year ago Alessandro Petacchi had almost ended his professional career but Omega Pharma-Quick Step manager Patrick Lefevere convinced him to continue in a new role. Instead of being the lead sprinter himself, the most successful rider among the current professionals was set to play the role of a key lead-out man for Mark Cavendish.

With Cavendish out due to illness, Petacchi has got a rare chance to return to his previous role these days and after coming up short at the Scheldeprijs, there was no one stopping the 40-year-old veteran in today's Belgian one-day race GP Pino Cerami. Benefiting from the lead-out of his teammate Mark Renshaw he denied defending champion Jonas Vangenechten a repeat win in the uphill bunch sprint.

The team had found itself in a difficult situation in the finale when a 13-rider group went up the road. In that move was Petacchi's teammate Martin Velits and the team had to decide whether to focus on the loyal domestique or the veteran sprinter.

In the end, they decided to give it their all for their fast finisher and so brought the group back on the final lap of the finishing circuit. Hence, it all came down to the predicted bunch sprint and here no one could prevent Petacchi from taking his first win since he took a stage at the 2012 Bayern Rundfahrt almost two years ago. Daniele Colli took third behind Vangenechten.

While Petacchi now travels to Turkey to joined forces with Cavendish in the Tour of Turkey, racing in Belgium continues on Wednesday with the hilly semi-classic Brabantse Pijl that is regarded as the key warm-up event for the Ardennes classics.

A hilly race

Moved from its usual Thursday slot on the calendar to the Saturday preceding the Paris-Roubaix, the GP Cerami was held on a very traditional course. The 200km race brought the riders from Saint-Ghislain to Frameries and included 6 smaller climbs, the last one 60km from the finish. The race ended with three laps of a finishing circuit in Frameries with an uphill finishing straight and usually suits the fast riders who can overcome the climbs.

There was one non starter as Roberto De Patre (Neri Sottoli) didn't join the fun when the riders took off for 200km of hilly racing. The race was off to a fierce start as the many smaller teams in the race all wanted to be part of the early action.

And early crash brought down Luigi Miletta (Neri Sottoli), Kevin Van Van Staeyen (Vastgoedservice), Sebastien Delfosse (Wallonie Bruxelles), Timothy Dupont (Roubaix) and Lennart Hofstede (Rabobank Development) and unfortunately the latter had to abandon the race. Meanwhile, the attacking continued on the front, with Sascha Weber (Veranclassic - Doltcini), Nicolas Vereecken (Verandas Willems) and Janis Dakteris (Team Differdange - Losch) being the first riders to get a significant gap.

The trio were quickly reeled in and for a long time, no one was able to open up a gap. After 18km of racing, Martin Reimer (MTN-Qhubeka) got a small advantage but his move had no success either.

At the 24km mark Gianluca Leonardi (Aero Zero Pro Team) took off and he was joined by Jonas Rickaert (Topsport Vlaanderen - Baloise) and Giorgio Cecchinel (Neri Sottoli). The trio stayed away for a few kilometres before being brought back into the fold.

The riders covered 47.5km in the first hour but after the first 60 minutes of racing, a break still hadn't been established. The situation finally changed shortly after the feed zone when Angelo Pagani (Bardiani) and - again - Cecchinel took off.

At the 54km mark, they were 15 seconds ahead and the peloton slowly accepted that this was the break of the day. As they stopped for a natural break, the gap started to grow, reaching 2 minutes at the 6km mark.

Over the next kilometres, the advantage continued to come up until it reached 8.03 after 90km of racing. Topsport Vlaanderen and Team 3M now decided to up the pace and they brought the gap down to 5.30 after 107km of aracing.

Omega Pharma-Quick Step were one of just two ProTeams in the race and naturally had to carry some of the responsibility. The Belgian team put youngster Julian Alaphilippe on the front and with the Frenchman leading the chase, the advantage continued to come down.

While Danilo Napolitano (Wanty) fought his way back from a puncure, the gap stabilized at around 4.40 until the Vastgoestservice team kicked into action. They were joined by the Roubaix team and those two team joined forces to bring the gap further down while up ahead Pagani secured himself the win in the mountains competition.

BigMat joined the chase work as the gap had come down to 2.34 41km from the finish and a little later Wanty also took part in the fun. On the difficult finishing circuit, however, the chase got disrupted when Sebastien Delfosse (Wallonie) and Sergey Lagutin (Rusvelo) took off 30km from the finish.

That move didn't last long and instead the chasing continued. While Jelle Mannaerts (Verandas Willems) went down in a crash, the escapees were swallowed up with 20km to go.

Shortly after, a 13-rider group escaped when Velits (Omega Pharma), Baugnies (Wanty - Groupe Gobert), Barbin, Canola (Bardiani), Ershov, Lagutin (Rusvelo), Pardini (Verandas Willems), Pestiaux (Wallonie Bruxelles), Rossetto (BigMat), Duval (Roubaix), Leonardi (Area Zero), Tusveld (Rabobank Development) and Vanspeybroeck (Team 3M) took off. 14km from the finish they were 10 seconds ahead and they started the final 13k lap with a gap.

The advantage grew to 12 seconds but when Omega Pharma-Quick Step took things into their own hands, the situation started to change. 6km from the finish, the group was caught and all was set for a bunch sprint.

Omega Pharma-Quick Step remained in control all the way to the line before delivering Petacchi to his first win since 2012.