Renewi Tour: Jasper Philipsen awarded photo-finish sprint to claim stage 4 victory, retakes leader's jersey

Another photo-finish at the 2026 Renewi Tour saw Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) emerge victorious on stage 4, narrowly pipping Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM) to the line in Bilzen-Hoeselt after a tight sprint.

Kooij came off the wheel of Biniam Girmay (NSN) in the final 200 metres with his eyes on the line and most of his rivals fading, but Philipsen was still lurking in his slipstream and struck in the final 75 metres to beat him with a good bike throw by a tyre's width.

There was another crash at the Belgian WorldTour race, with Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) coming down in the final 500 metres, but most of the big names managed to avoid it.

Alessandro Borgo (Bahrain-Victorious) came through late to finish third on stage, beating Dylan Groenewegen (Unibet Rose Rockets), who opened up the final sprint following a strong lead-out, with Luca Mozzato (Tudor) rounding out the top five.

Philipsen moved back into the overall lead of the race ahead of stage 3 winner Jenno Berckmoes (Lotto Intermarché), who failed to get up there in the sprint and couldn't get away from his rivals despite strong work from Arnaud De Lie leading into the final rep of the many punchy climbs along the 187km route.

Philipsen will take a four-second lead over his compatriot into the final day in and around Leuven, the site of the 2021 World Championships.

"It was a hard day, didn't have the freshest legs in the end, but I didn't think anybody had. So in the end I was happy I could launch my sprint just in time to overtake Olav," said Philipsen after his eighth win in 2026 so far.

"It was a really close sprint and a strong sprint from him, so I'm happy I could take victory. Of course it was a very tough day with the weather conditions, and it wasn't easy either with the hills on the course. A tough day and tomorrow also will be another tough day."

Sprinters battle it out after tough fourth stage

While the fourth stage of the Renewi Tour was always expected to be one for the sprinters, a tough course through Belgian Limburg lined with 14 short and sharp hills meant it was never going to be an easy day, with constantly changing weather conditions on Saturday adding another variable to the difficulty.

Racing split with 130km to go, when a six-man breakaway went up the road: Axel Huens, Johan Jacobs (Groupama-FDJ United), Kamil Małecki (Pinarello Q36.5), Lionel Taminiaux (Lotto Intermarché), Aivaras Mikutis (Tudor), Toms Skujiņš (Lidl-Trek).

While they went a minute up the road, 16 riders did briefly break away from the peloton to form a second group, but they were quickly caught, and the race settled into a regular sprint stage chasing pattern, with the likes of Alpecin-Premier Tech, Soudal-QuickStep and Netcompany Ineos doing the lion's share of the work.

The break did survive out in front until the Green KM, where Taminiaux and Mikutis shared the three sprint wins. From here, though, the Belgian dropped back while the Lithuanian champion kicked on to be the last man standing up the road, alongside Małecki, before they were fulled caught back with 21km to go.

Action in the peloton didn't settle, even with a sprint now looking certain, as Lidl-Trek – who are without sprinter Jonathan Milan after he crashed on stage 2 and abandoned one day later – sent Søren Kragh Andersen up the road with 17km to go.

His attack was working well until he reached the final lap up the Letenberg climb, where Arnaud De Lie accelerated in support of Berckmoes and all but fully ended the Dane's move. However, as the pace lulled due to no one wanting to push on, he was just able to re-establish a lead.

Kragh Andersen would survive all the way into the final kilometre, where he was caught by Unibet Rose Rockets and Soudal-QuickStep working on the front for a sprint. As the finale played out, though, both those teams would miss out as Groenewegen and Tim Merlier failed to match the much faster Philipsen and Kooij.

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Results

General classification after stage 4