Daire Feeley was best of the Irish team on Wednesday's opening stage at Flèche du Sud in Luxembourg, taking 15th place after a bunch sprint settled the honours.
The 73.6km evening stage, starting and finishing in Kayl, was won by Dutch rider Daan van Sintmaartensdijk (VolkerWessels Cycling Team) from Italian Filippo Fortin (Maloja Pushbikers) and Austrian Fabian Steininger (Felbermayr-Simplon Wels).
The stage came down to a sprint from a bunch of just over 80 riders from a field of 132. Feeley, Matthew Devins and Dean Harvey all finished in the bunch for the Irish team - placing 15th, 64th and 75th respectively.
Adam Kelly and Liam Curley were in a group, in 98th and 100th place, at 1:18. Odhran Doogan was 116th at 9:16 after eight laps of racing with a short climb each lap.
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Darren Rafferty was initially named in the team, in what is an U23 line-up apart from road captain Feeley, but he was unable to ride as he is competing in two Italian races this weekend with his trade team Hagens Berman Axeon.
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Thursday's stage 2 at Flèche du Sud is 165.7km, starting and finishing in Rumelange. There are three small climbs in the first half of the stage; two of 2.5km and one of 1.3km. The riders then race onto a finishing circuit for four laps with a climb each lap - 1.9km at an average gradient of 4.3 per cent.
Friday's stage 3, of five, features six categorised climbs, including a 3km ascent on the finishing circuit, with the race finishing at the top of that climb on the third passage.
