Going into the Tour of Belgium, André Greipel was targeting success in the first two sprint stages of the race but the big German had to see Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) dominate both stages. Hence, he risked being forced to leave the race empty-handed but today he got his revenge when he won the first of two hilly weekend stages.

 

Already last year he had proved that the finale was not too hard for him as he had won the sprint behind a successful escape that narrowly managed to hold off the peloton. This year he and his Lotto Belisol team left nothing to chance and decided to ride whole-heartedly for their sprinter.

 

The hard work paid off as it all came down to a bunch sprint on the hard uphill finishing straight and after their recent failures, the Lotto Belisol train worked like clockwork. Passing the flamme rouge, Jurgen Roelandts was on the front and a little further up the road, Greg Henderson took over.

 

The Kiwi delivered his captain perfectly and when Greipel took off, he easily opened a massive gap to the rest of the peloton. Only Roman Maikin was able to keep him within reasonable distance to atke a surprise second place while Philippe Gilbert came very fast from behind to take third and score some important bonus seconds.

 

The 184km fourth stage was held on a course starting and finishing in Lac de l'Eau d'Heure and took in some very hilly terrain in Wallonia. It was up and down almost all day and it all came to an exciting conclusion on a hilly finishing circuit that the riders had to cover thrice. The Petit Poggio featured on the circuit and was the perfect scene for a late attack.

 

After an aggressive start and 15km of racing, Serge De Wortelaer (Veranclassic), Sebastien Delfosse (Wallonie) and Evan Huffman (Astana) got clear and the trio soon got a gap of almost 3 minutes. For most of the day OPQS kept the gap stable around the 3-minute mark until they got some help from first Lotto Belisol and later also Giant-Shimano.

 

As they went up the Petit Poggio for the first time, BMC took over and they launched Silvan Dillier off in an attack. The young Swiss was joined by Brian Bulgac (Giant-Shimano) and Jimmy Janssens (3M) and the trio managed to bridge the gap at the 40km to go mark after they had passed the Petit Poggio for the second of four times.

 

At this point, they were one-minute ahead while Greipel had to battle his way back after a puncture. OPQS were now riding hard as Dillier was a GC threat and they gradually brought the gap down.

 

With 14km to go, the sextet was only 20 seconds ahead and this prompted Dillier to attack. Only Delfosse and Janssens could follow and later Dewortelaer also made the junction.

 

With 7km to go, Dillier finally got clear on his own while behind his teammate Gilbert launched an unsuccessful attack. On the Petit Poggio, however, it was second-placed Tom Dumoulin (Giant) that took off and Martin failed to close the gap.

 

Dumoulin were caught though and instead Sylvain Chavanel (IAM) gave it a try. Dillier had now been caught and Chavanel had no luck either.

 

3 riders got a small gap inside the final 3km but the Lotto Belisol team had now taken control of the 30-rider peloton. The team made the perfect lead-out for Greipel who paid them back for their work by taking an impressive win.

 

For Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) it was a dangerous day but he managed to neutralize the attacks from Chavanel and Dumoulin. Hence, he defended his 16-second lead over Dumoulin ahead of tomorrow's queen stage in the Ardennes. The stage takes places on a very hilly circuit with 6 climbs - including the Mur de Huy - that will be covered twice but as there are almost 20km from the top of the final ascent to the finish, it will be hard to put the big German under pressure.