BinckBank Tour: Hodeg wins stage 5 in Venray

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Alvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck-QuickStep) claimed stage 5 of the 2019 BinckBank Tour after edging out Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo) on the line in Venray.

Hodeg benefitted from an excellent lead-out from his Deceuninck - Quick Step team after they brought the young Colombian to the front of a messy sprint with just under 150m to go. Bennett, who had won the opening three stages, was forced to follow wheels in the closing stage after his Bora squad had chased down the earlier break and then planted the Irishman on Hodeg’s wheel with just over a kilometre to go. Bennett was forced to check his line after one rider almost forced him wide but despite coming to back to Hodeg’s rear wheel he was unable to overall the QuickStep rider before the line.

Trek-Segafredo played a prominent role in the last kilometre as they looked to launch Theuns but they were swamped by Deceuninck-QuickStep with 500m to go, before Hodeg kicked for the line.

Overnight race leader Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) retained his overall lead with two stages to go. A crash in the finale saw several riders in the middle of the field hit the ground, including Heinrich Haussler (Bahrain Merida).

The stage had seen Carlos Verona (Movistar), Roy Curvers (Team Sunweb), Moreno Hofland (EF-Education First), Senne Leysen (Roompot-Charles), Thomas Sprengers (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) and Baptiste Planckaert (Wallonie Bruxelles) move clear.

The move was nullified after fewer than 20km, and with 128km to go only Curvers remained out front from the original break, and the Sunweb rider was joined by Michael Schar (CCC Team), Miles Scotson (Groupama FDJ) and Boy van Poppel (Roompot-Charles).

However, a little under 20km later, the complexion of the race had changed again with Robert Stannard (Michelton Scott), Jasha Sutterlin (Movistar), Willem Jakobus Smit (Katusha-Alpecin) and Oscar Riesebeek (Roompot-Charles) form a dangerous four-man group with 110km to go.

The new leaders quickly established a gap of 2:30 but with a number of sprint teams moving to the front, the leaders were soon losing time. They were eventually caught with 4km to, just as the lead-out trains began to tackle the last few kilometres.

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