Eneco Tour: Wellens wins in Houffalize

Lotto Soudal's Tim Wellens served up a dose of déja vu on Saturday, taking a solo victory on stage 6 of the Eneco Tour and pulling on the white leader’s jersey.

The Belgian, who won the corresponding stage in the Ardennes last year to take the race lead en route to overall victory, was strongest on a chaotic day’s racing and finished 49 seconds ahead of a chasing duo of Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) and Simon Geschke (Giant-Alpecin).

Race leader at the start of the day, Wilco Kelderman (LottoNL-Jumbo), came home in a fragmented main group over a minute down on Wellens, who now leads the race by 1:03 over Van Avermaet and 1:17 over Kelderman, thanks in part to nine bonus seconds picked up over the golden kilometre.

This year’s stage in the Ardennes lacked the finish at La Redoute that characterised the corresponding stage in the previous two editions, but the racing was no less intense because of it.

A breakaway group made up of Jan Polanc (Lampre-Merida), Mathias Brändle (IAM Cycling), Nikias Arndt (Giant-Alpecin), Sébastien Turgot (Ag2r-La Mondiale) and Jérôme Baugnies (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) had a four-minute advantage but shortly after the peloton came through the line in Rouffalize for the first of three finishing laps, the race burst into life.

Andrey Amador (Movistar) kicked things off and after a flurry of attacks, counter attacks, lulls, and injections of pace, a group of eight went clear, including Tiesj Benoot (Lotto-Soudal), Chris Juul Jenson (Tinkoff-Saxo), Andriy Grivko and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), David Tanner (IAM), Vyacheslav Kuznetsov (Katusha), Greg van Avermaet (BMC) and Jan Bakelants (Ag2r-La Mondiale). Kelderman was distanced for a while but, isolated, managed to get himself back up there as the break was caught and the leading group swelled to 19 riders, among them Philippe Gilbert (BMC), Tom Jelte Slagter (Cannondale-Garmin), Mick Rogers (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Geschke.

As the riders took on short, sharp climbs like the Côte Saint-Roche and the Côte d’Achouffe, there was barely any respite in the attritional racing. Brändle enjoyed a spell alone out front and when Van Avermaet pegged him back Geschke immediately launched a move of his own.The German was joined by Rogers but Wellens set off in pursuit and gained time on the third climb of Saint-Roche, which features in the Liège-Bastogne-Liège classic.

Wellens soon forged clear and led through each of the three intermediate sprints in the golden kilometre to pick up nine bonus seconds, while Van Avermaet came through behind in second to earn six for himself. After being dropped for a while, Kelderman got himself back in touch with the main group but it soon became clear they now lacked the urgency needed to prevent Wellens from taking the day’s honours. Geschke joined up with Van Avermaet in a leading chase duo, while Bakelants and Slagter also set off from the bunch.

Wellens’ lead, though, was growing all the time, and with a large downhill section to tackle before entering the town of Houffalize, he was already riding himself into the race lead.

Last year he defended his jersey on the final day but tomorrow the race heads in to Flanders and up cobbled climbs. He’s in the driving seat but another day of frenetic racing lies in store.

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