Jasper Philipsen has won the fourth stage of the Renewi Tour. The Flame of Ham was the fastest in the bunch sprint on behalf of Alpecin-Deceuninck, after he was once again brilliantly dropped off by Mathieu van der Poel. Jonathan Milan could no longer really mix in the bunch sprint after a misjudged bend.
A billiard-flat stage, that was what awaited the remaining riders in the Dutch-Belgian stage race on the penultimate day. And to be precise, that was a flat stage between Oostburg and Aalter, where a sprint would most likely take place. Or would the wind, which was blowing quite strongly, throw a spanner in the works?
Early in the afternoon we saw a group of six taking to the road. Jordy Bouts (TDT-Unibet Cycling Team), Luca De Meester (Bingoal WB), Simon Pellaud (Tudor), Alex Colman (Team Flanders – Baloise), Jack Rootkin-Gray (EF Education-EasyPost) and Ayco Bastiaens (Soudal Quick-Step) were the names. However, the sextet did not get much space, which meant that they were also caught by the scruff of the neck quite quickly.
Milan takes the last corner wrong and can’t really compete, Philipsen finishes Van der Poel’s preliminary work perfectly
There were still 90 kilometres to be conquered, so there was plenty of room for new attacks. And they came, in large numbers. Eventually, another sextet managed to get rid of the pack. Among them were Bert Van Lerberghe (Soudal Quick-Step), Dries De Bondt (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Jan Maas (Jayco-AlUla) and again Colman.
That group also couldn’t make it to the finish and so all eyes could be focused on a mass sprint in the streets of Aalter? Who could do anything about the rock-solid primitive Milan? Several guests, it turned out. The Lidl-Trek bear was a bit boxed in after he took a bend much too wide and couldn’t get involved in the mass sprint, which was convincingly won by Philipsen, again after a firm lead-out by Van der Poel.
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Stage 4 results Renewi Tour 2024
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
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