Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) won the fifth and final stage of the Renewi Tour in a final kilometre attack from a fractured peloton, beating Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates) to second place and Søren Kragh Andersen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) to third. Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates) claimed the overall title. With under 90km to go, Wellens coordinated a rider protest about the small and dangerous roads being used in the finale, and racing was suspended until organisers consented that the general classification times would be taken before the final 5km, and there would be no overall time bonuses on the finish.
Sam Welsford (Team dsm-firmenich) won a photo finish on stage 4 at the Renewi Tour on Saturday. Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma) finished second and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) third, leaving Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) off the podium in fourth. Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates) avoided the chaos of late crashes to maintain his overall lead.
Mike Teunissen made a late-race attack that netted him the stage 3 win at Renewi Tour. Tim Wellens, who finished second on the day, moved into the blue leader's jersey.
Ineos Grenadiers' JoshTarling, 19, covered stage 2's 13.6km time trial course with a winning time of 15:05 and an average speed of 54 kph, to take his first WorldTour victory and the overall race lead.
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won the opening stage of the Renewi Tour in Ardooie. The Belgian delivered a powerful effort to claim the spoils ahead of Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) and Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma).
Overview
The Renewi Tour, most recently staged as the Benelux Tour, returns to the calendar after cancellation in 2022, with new dates and a new title sponsor. The 2023 event covers five days of racing, taking place Wednesday, August 23 to Sunday, August 27.
Now the Renewi Tour, the WorldTour stage race, began in 2005 as the Eneco Tour and later changed to the BinckBank Tour. It became part of the ProTour in 2005, as a reorganised effort to continue a long-standing Tour of the Netherlands stage race. The event was due to take place in the Netherlands and Belgium last year in early September across seven days, but organiser Golazo did not go forward citing a clash with other races, including the Vuelta a España.
Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious) won the last edition of the Renewi Tour in 2021. He was joined on the overall podium by teammate Matej Mohoric, who was second overall.
The first stage of this year’s race will take place in West Flanders for a road stage between Blankenberge to Ardooie. An individual time trial will then unfold in Sluis, Netherlands. Back to Belgium, the final three road stages will cover territory inland with an overall finish in Bilzen.
