BinckBank Tour: Cort wins in Lanaken

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Magnus Cort Nielsen (Astana) won stage 5 of the BinckBank Tour to Lanaken after four riders escaped the control of the sprinters teams to steal their glory yet again.

After Taco van der Hoorn (Roompot) won stage 3 from the break, and Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) snatched victory on stage 4 with a solo attack in the final kilometre, today Cort Nielsen was in the early break that held off the peloton on the final circuits of Lanaken.

The Dane led out the sprint just as he did to win in Carcassonne last month at the Tour de France. He upped his speed along the barriers to stay ahead and hit the line first.

EF Education First-Drapac stagiaire Julius van den Berg tried to come off his wheel but could only finish second. Alexis Gougeard (AG2R-La Mondiale) was third, with Jonas Rickaert (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) finishing fourth at 29 seconds after suffering a late puncture. He was only 1:11 in the overall classification at the start of the stage but endured a farcical end to his stage, crashing into the back of his team car as he tried to make a quick wheel change.

Caleb Ewan (Mitchelton-Scott) won the sprint at the head of the peloton but that was only for fifth place, 33 seconds after Cort Nielsen's victory.

Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) finished 10th, on the same time as Ewan, and so kept the leader's green jersey for another day, as the decisive weekend stages in the Ardennes and around Geraardsbergen loom large on the horizon.

Cort Nielsen was under pressure to win after ripping up the Astana tactics for the day.

"My directors looked strange at me when they came up in the car. They said: 'what are you doing here? You're supposed to do the lead-out for Riccardo Minali in the sprint.'. But now I'm here, with a win, it's amazing," he explained.

"It's amazing. I didn't really believe it when I first went in the break, but if you don't try you're not going to win. To be able to keep the gap to the bunch was amazing. Already they succeeded two days ago so for sure the sprint teams were aware. But maybe they allowed us ride too easy in the beginning, so we saved the legs for the last one hour and twenty, where we went full gas."

How it unfolded

The break of the day formed almost as soon as the flag dropped, with Gougeard joining the other three when he realised it was a strong move and the sprinters' team would perhaps lack the desire, power and determination to chase them.

The four soon opened a three-minute lead. Bahrain-Merida did their best to keep them under control to defend Mohoric's overall lead but the sprinters' team failed to step up in the second half of the race and the four worked smoothly together and then upped the pace in the finale for the circuits of Lanaken near Maastricht.

A crash on a straight section of road with 41km to race also played a part in their success. Owain Doull of Team Sky went down hardest and needed time to get going. However, Marcel Kittel was also delayed and so Katusha-Alpecin focused on helping him back to the peloton rather than chasing the break.

The gap to the break had moved to 2:46 with 38km to go. Mitchelton-Scott put Svein Tuft on the front to help the chase for Ewan but it was too little too late. Bahrain-Merida helped out but only to keep Rickaert under control. Bora-Hansgrohe tried to fire up the chase but left it too late.

Indeed, the four managed to snap the elastic and break the peloton's motivation with 20km or so to go and the peloton and the sprinters' team eased up, embarrassed to have been beaten by the break once again.

The only reaction came from the riders looking to defend their places in the overall classification, with two brief attacks by Stuyven and then Greg van Avermaet (BMC Racing). However, the break stole the glory, with Cort Nielsen taking the biggest spoils.

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