Jonathan Milan won the two bunch sprints of the Renewi Tour until today, but the technical finale launched obstacles that took him out of the fight for victory. Jasper Philipsen seized the opportunity and a great leadout from Mathieu van der Poel to win stage 4.
Six riders formed the day's breakaway during today's flat stage. Luca Van Boven, Dries de Bondt, Bert van Lerberghe, Stefan De Bod, Jan Maas and Alex Colman formed the move of the day.
But as expected the group stood very little chances. They battled amongst each other to be the last rider caught and that was ultimately Dries de Bondt who survived until 8 kilometers to go. But the sprinter teams were already deep into a positioning battle in the relatively narrow road that led to the finish.
The finale was extremely tense, with a sudden acceleration with 2 kilometers to go. Plenty of touching followed, with a crash eventually impossible to prevent. The main favourites remained in front, Lidl-Trek were in front for the decisive sharp corner with 400 meters to go but Jonathan Milan lost a lot of speed in the berm.
Mathieu van der Poel brought Jasper Philipsen to the front at the right time and with a textbook leadout led the Belgian to his first stage win in the race. He was unmatched; with Christophe Laporte and Arnaud De Lie riding to second and third on the day.
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