Baloise Belgium Tour: Caleb Ewan survives the climbs to win stage 4

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Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) won his second stage in as many days at the Baloise Tour of Belgium in another sprint finish.

The Australian was a surprise victor given the hilly parcours, but no breakaways succeeded in getting away, and a peloton that had been reduced to less than 40 riders contested for the stage win, with Ewan getting back on after some superb team work from Lotto Soudal.

Bryan Coquard (B&B Hotels) sprinted for a distant second-place, and Davide Ballerini was third, while his Deceuninck-QuickStep teammate Remco Evenepoel finished comfortably in the peloton to retain the overall lead.

Ewan’s winning margin ahead of Coquard was almost two bike-lengths, but the Australian had to put a lot of work in to still be in contention by the finish.

In fact, he had been dropped out of the peloton on an uncategorised but tricky drag uphill 8km from the finish. 

But whereas other sprinters dropped like Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Fenix) were finished, Ewan still had the legs to rejoin the peloton with 4.5km to spare, with help from his Lotto Soudal teammates.

Those teammates (of which there were still four) then repeated what they had done in the finale of yesterday’s stage, by leading the peloton for the final few kilometres. Harry Sweeny and Philippe Gilbert both did impressive turns, before Jasper De Buyst took over for the technical final kilometre, featuring multiple twists and turns, with Ewan in his wheel.

Having been so well-positioned, there was little doubt Ewan would finish off the job, and the man on his wheel, Coquard, had no response when he opened up his sprint.

“It was a pretty tough race all day,” explained Ewan at the finish. “They say this was the hardest stage of the Tour. So, I was not really expecting to be there in the final, and got a little bit gapped on the last climb. 

“My team did a great job, waiting for me, and bringing me back to the front of the bunch, and we still had Philippe [Gilbert] and Jasper [De Buyst].

“We heard on the radio that they [Deceuninck-QuickStep] were riding full gas [on the final climb], and I knew that they wouldn’t want me to get back on. But I kept fighting with my teammates and they did a superb job waiting for me and bringing me back, and then also doing the lead-out afterwards." 

The way he managed to survive the climb and still have the legs brought back memories of his Milan-San Remo performance earlier in the season, although Ewan doesn’t believe he’s going quite as well as he was then.

“I think I was still probably a little bit better there, as I really trained specifically for that. Whereas now, I’m training more for the sprints. But I’ve said all along this year that I’ve felt much stronger in general, and I think I showed that today. Maybe the old Caleb wouldn’t have got through that," he said.

“To be honest, at the start of the stage I told the team that I wanted to go as deep as possible for training. It was a pretty solid day all day, but I was still there at the end.

“I thought this was the hardest stage of the Tour, so I thought that the guys who don’t have a chance in the sprints would have their opportunity today and that they would race really aggressively. It was a super-high tempo all day, and I think maybe a lot of the guys didn’t really have the legs to get away in the end.”  

There were indeed several attacks from puncheur riders throughout the stage, but none were able to make their moves stick.

Once Jonas Rickaert (Alpecin-Fenix), the final survivor from the day’s break, was caught on the final climb, which the peloton reached the top of without any attacks going clear, all was set for a reduced bunch sprint. 

All of the top ten were present in that peloton, meaning the GC remains unchanged heading into tomorrow’s flat final stage. 

How it unfolded

Taking place in the Belgian Ardennes, this was the hilliest stage of the Baloise Tour of Belgium, featuring multiple of the short but steep climbs this region is renowned for.

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) was a non-starter following the crash he suffered yesterday, as was Jan-Willem van Schip (Beat Cycling), albeit for a completely different reason. He was controversially disqualified for the handlebars used during yesterday’s stage, despite having been initially cleared by the UCI commissaires to use them.

Van Schip’s Beat Cycling teammate Luuc Bugter got into the day’s break at the start of the stage, along with Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert), Jonas Rickaert (Alpecin-Fenix), Samuele Zoccarato (Bardiani-CSF-Faizane) and Roberto Carlos Gonzalez (Vini Zabu).

They were joined by Ryan Mullen (Trek-Segafredo), to form a leading group of six that gained a maximum advantage of nearly six minutes.

Attacks kicked off in the peloton over the hilly terrain at 43km to the finish, with GC threats Ide Schelling (Bora-Hansgrohe), Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma) and Oscar Riesebeek (Alpecin-Fenix) all putting in digs.

This put Deceuninck-QuickStep under pressure, and several of the domestiques who had been leading the peloton comfortably were dropped out of the peloton. But they still had the resources to neutralise the flurry of attacks, and upon catching them the race calmed down enough for some of their dropped riders, including Michael Morkov and Zdenek Stybar, to return to the front of the peloton.

The race calmed down again, but the activity had been enough to bring the gap between the peloton and the breakaway down to 1:44 by the time they crossed the finish line for the penultimate time to begin the last lap of the hilly, 30km finishing circuit.

That gap continued to fall as Jumbo-Visma took control of the peloton and increased the pace. 

The break’s days looked numbered, but Van der Hoorn, Zoccarato and Rickaert bought themselves more time when they went clear from the other on a climb 21km from the finish. 

Dries De Bondt (Alpecin-Fenix) attacked the peloton on that same climb, just as the stragglers from the break began to get caught, but was brought back. Others tried shortly afterwards, but Arkea-Samsic took control of the peloton to prevent anyone from getting away, perhaps hoping for a sprint with Nacer Bouhanni, who had managed to remain in what was now a significantly reduced peloton. 

Once the gap between the peloton and the three remaining escapees creeped back up to 30 seconds, Deceuninck-QuickStep resumed control of the peloton. 

On the next climb, 12km from the finish, Toon Vandebosch (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) attacked, but the pace by Deceuninck-QuickStep was too quick for him to get away.

In the break, Rickaert managed to drop Zoccarato and Van der Hoorn on the final climb, who were both caught by a peloton that was now motoring along due to the pace set by Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Yves Lampaert. Rickaert soon suffered the same fate, ensuring that the race ended in a bunch sprint.