Eneco Tour: Peter Sagan beats Greipel in stage 4 photo-finish sprint

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Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) made it back-to-back stage wins at the Eneco Tour, taking the leader’s jersey after a photo finish saw him edge out André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) in a hectic stage 4 sprint.

The 202km leg from Aalter to St-Pieters-Leeuw, with a finishing circuit in Brabantsje Pijl territory, was a chaotic and uncontrolled affair, but things came back together late on for a bunch kick, and the world champion once again proved himself to be the strongest.

Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) led out the sprint, and Sagan bumped shoulders with Arnaud Démare (FDJ) in a battle for the slipstream, with the Frenchman remonstrating as he crossed the line before Sagan vented his own anger once his victory had been confirmed.

As it was, the Slovak powered past Kristoff, but the biggest threat was coming from behind as Greipel, keen to prove a point to German Worlds selectors with Kittel out of the equation, came soaring up on the left. The Lotto Soudal man, whose teammates had done the lion’s share of the work in the final 5km, finished faster but essentially ran out of road, with Sagan securing the victory with a superior bike throw.

“There are some riders who are not happy [with the final sprint]. I didn’t know I won because it was a very close sprint with Andre and I had to wait for the final results. I’m very happy because it was another sprint with very good timing; a headwind finish,” Sagan said.

“I had a little problem with Démare, but that is sprinting. If I did something bad, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I did. I was in my line and he was very aggressive to me.”

Sagan was second overall at the start of the day, trailing time trial winner Rohan Dennis by three seconds, but he collected 10 bonus seconds for his win and now leads the BMC rider by seven seconds, with Jos Van Emden (LottoNL-Jumbo) third overall at 12 seconds.

“I’m happy that I got more seconds from today and we want to make a good team time trial tomorrow, then we will see how we are going. We want to do our best here,” added Sagan.

How it unfolded

The 202km stage started out from Aalter, near Gent, before making its way towards the south of Brussels, where the true challenges awaited, with two laps of a 32km finishing circuit that featured two categorised sectors of pavé – not to mention plenty of cobbles elsewhere – and two short climbs.

There was an early breakaway of four riders, with Mark McNally (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Brian Van Goethem (Roompot Oranje Peloton) going clear before being joined by the latter’s teammate, Sjoerd Van Ginneken, and  Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise's Bert Van Lerberghe. The quartet carved out a lead of around four minutes but it started to fall at the half-way mark as the cobbles began to appear.

The race came back together just ahead of the first crossing of the line with 64km remaining and, after the Brabantsebaan sector of pavé, the race really kicked off.

It was Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) who shook it up first and caused a six-rider group to form, giving those who missed out in the peloton plenty to worry about. It only lasted several minutes, but after they had been reeled back in, chaos continued as riders, one after another, pinged off the front to try their luck and test the water, with no one able to exert control.

Nelson Oliveira (Movistar) and Nico Denz (AG2R-La Mondiale) took a small lead over the first climb of the Alsemberg before a few more moves – including a strong one with race leader Dennis and Edvald Boasson Hagen – came and went. When that one had been shut down there was a lull in the peloton and the Astana duo of Dimitriy Gruzdev and Andriy Grivko took full advantage, launching a two-up move that would stick until the final kilometres.

They had 30 seconds as they crossed the line for the second time with 32km to go, and on the final lap Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) rolled the dice and was joined by fellow rouleur Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) in a promising move.

Despite their collective strength, they never got within 15 seconds of the leaders and, having spent time hesitating over whether to commit, spent most of their time in no-man’s land ahead of the bunch. They were caught on the Bruine Put climb, with gradients of eight per cent, where Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) attacked over the top and linked up with the Astana duo on the descent.

By that stage they had just 10 seconds, and the balance was in favour of the sprinters’ teams in the final 10km. Lotto Soudal and Dimension Data were the prominent forces, and the Astana duo gave up with 3km to go, with Stuyven staying out for a further kilometre.

From there it was a question of how best to wind up a slightly uphill headwind sprint, and Sagan combined physical presence, positioning, timing and speed to notch his 10th WorldTour win of the season.

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