Renewi Tour: Jenno Berckmoes pulls off a heist to snatch stage 3 and the leader's jersey on Tour of Flanders-inspired day

Jenno Berckmoes (Lotto-Intermarché) pulled off a stunning heist to win stage 3 of the Renewi Tour, turning a late breakaway into success mere metres ahead of the charging peloton.

On a route inspired by the Tour of Flanders, the 25-year-old Belgian went clear of a fragmented peloton in the company of Alec Segaert (Bahrain Victorious) over the final ascent of the famous Muur van Geraardsbergen.

Despite only holding a narrow gap on the reduced peloton for much of the 33-kilometre finishing circuit, the pair of them returned to Geraardsbergen with a slender lead and a shot, with the finish line positioned half-way up the climb – on the cobbles of De Vesten but before the iconic steep section of the Muur by the chapel.

Berckmoes attacked Segaert with 500 metres to go and surged clear as his compatriot was swallowed up by the charging pack. His own teammate Arnaud De Lie opened the sprint behind, with race leader Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) coming around for second place three seconds down, just ahead of Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM) in third.

Philipsen was forced to hand over the leader’s jersey to Berckmoes, who also claimed 18 seconds in time bonuses – 10 for his stage win and eight during the ‘Green Kilometre’ on the Bosberg, shortly after the winning move was made.

Having started the day nine seconds down, Berckmoes now leads the race by six seconds over Philipsen, with Kooij another six seconds down. In a race that was always going to be decided by seconds, and where the Green Kilometre bonuses can have a big influence as they did today, it's wide open as we head into the final weekend.

Crashes and chaos

The third stage of the Renewi Tour was a 182km journey from Celles to Geraardsbergen, taking in several classic climbs of the Tour of Flanders, including the Paterberg, en route to the finishing circuit that featured not only the iconic Muur and Bosberg combination, but also the Onkerzeleberg and Denderoordberg climbs.

There were four non-starters after a crash-ridden stage 2: Kasper Asgreen (EF Education-EasyPost), Simone Consonni (Lidl-Trek), Tobias Bayer (Alpecin-Premier Tech), and Taco van der Hoorn (Lotto-Intermarché).

The stage opened with two short laps around Celles, where the first breakaway was brought back and, as they headed to the Flemish Ardennes, replaced by a new three-man move containing: Julius Johansen (UAE), Frederik Frison (Pinarello-Q36.5), and Michiel Lambrecht (Flanders-Baloise).

After the spate of non-starers, there were more non-finishers, with stage 1 winner Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) unable to continue after his heavy crash the previous day, while those to crash out here were Sam Welsford (Netcompany-Ineos), Filip Maciejuk (Movistar), Albert Torres (Movistar), and Haimar Etxeberria (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).

The breakaway took their lead out towards the four-minute mark as they ticked off seven climbs, including the Knokteberg, Paterberg, and Oude Kruisberg, en route to Geraardsbergen for two laps of a 33km finishing circuit. The circuit started and finished on De Vesten, half-way up the famous Muur van Geraardsbergen, and went on, after the steep section to the chapel, to tackle the Bosberg, then the Onkerzeleberg and Denderoordberg, with plenty of flat roads in between.

The gap to the break was down to two minutes by the first passage of the finish line with 66km to go. There was no real action in the main peloton until the first climb of the Onkerzeleberg, where Lorenzo Milesi (Movistar), Martin Svrcek (Soudal-QuickStep), and Niklas Behrens (Visma-Lease a Bike) attacked from the bunch and bridged to the leaders to make it six out front.

As the pace intensified there were more crashes, Biniam Girmay (NSN) going down before another huge pile-up a kilometre from the end of that first and penultimate lap. Magnus Sheffield (Netcompany-Ineos) and Vlad Van Mechelen (Bahrain Victorious) were forced out as a result.

That crash effectively split the peloton as they headed onto the Muur and under the finish banner, with Berckmoes and Segaert up in a split of seven that hit the steep section of Kapelmuur and swallowed up the day's break. The two of them forced their way clear over the top and survived to the Bosberg, where they shared out the Green Kilometre bonuses.

The 40 or so riders left in the peloton were close at hand but never well organised, with Philipsen closing gaps on his own at one point, and a number of accelerations but no cohesive chase.

When Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) attacked with 18km to go there was a huge lull, which allowed the Kiwi rider to settle into a long solo pursuit, but he'd never join the two Belgians, who were combining faultlessly.

There was a big surge in the bunch on the approach to the final climb, the Denderoordberg, which did for Pithie and brought the leading duo back to within 10 seconds. But despite an attack from Tomas Kopecky (Unibet-Rose-Rockets), there was a new lull, and the gap went out again.

That gave fresh hope to the leading pair, especially as the final couple of kilometres towards Geraardsbergen were downhill. The peloton chased, and split once again on the technical entrance to the town off the descent, and it hung in the balance. But Berckmoes delivered an almighty burst of power as the road tilted uphill to surge clear of Segaert and as he maintained his power over the draggy cobbles it soon became clear he was on his way to victory.

Segaert was swallowed up, and the fast finishers hit out behind, but Berckmoes held off to cap a fine victory that leaves this race perfectly poised.

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