Dehaes sprints to victory in Clabecq

Kenny Dehaes (Lotto Belisol) won stage 4 at the Tour de Wallonie in a bunch sprint finale. The 28-year-old Belgian edged Giacomo Nizzolo (RadioShack Leopard) and Danilo Napolitano (Accent Jobs-Wanty) at the stage finish in Clabecq to earn his fifth victory of the season.

Alexandr Kolobnev (Katusha) finished in the field and retains the overall leader's jersey after today's penultimate stage. Anthony Geslin (FDJ.fr) remains in second overall at six seconds while Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) moves into third place at 22 seconds after Stijn Devolder (RadioShack Leopard) received a 20-second time penalty and dropped from second to 27th overall at 38 seconds.

The stage was dominated by a six man break comprised of Alexandre Pichot (Europcar), Jérôme Gilbert (Accent Jobs-Wanty), Christophe Premont (Crelan-Euphony), Jan Ghyselinck (Cofidis, Solutions Credits), Tim Declercq (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise) and Ludwig De Winter (Color Code-Biowanze). Ghyselinck and Declercq dropped back to the field, however, after finishing 1-2 at the first intermediate sprint while the remaining four continued and pushed out a maximum lead of 13 minutes.

Once the chase in the peloton began in earnest the leading quartet would be brought back, with Premont the final escapee to be caught with 13 kilometres remaining. Several attacks were launched on the day's final climb, six kilometres from the finish, but the bunch would come back together for the concluding field sprint.

"When the leaders had an advantage of 13 minutes I asked the team to step up the pace," said Dehaes. "My legs felt good so Jurgen Van de Walle increased the speed in the bunch. Together with Omega Pharma-QuicksStep we managed to get closer to the leaders.

"During the last climb I started to have some difficulties but Gert Dockx assisted me in the descent. Jonas van Genechten made a perfect lead-out and I could finish the fantastic work of the team. It already is my fifth victory this year."