Tim Wellens: "Lampaert did cost me the overall victory"

Tim Wellens had been chasing the overall victory at the Baloise Belgium Tour, a battle which came down to the last day and to every single second as he and Mauro Schmid chased bonus seconds in the Golden Kilometer of the final day.

Wellens had started the day in the same time as the Swiss rider, however after the first intermediate sprint he found himself three seconds ahead. In the following two sprints though, he lost those three seconds back, much due to the chaos that occurred in the peloton, and due to the blocking Yves Lampaert has done - which earned him a disqualification.

“Of course I am disappointed to be so close to winning the Baloise Belgium Tour. As a team, we would fully go for the overall victory and we did everything we could to enter the Golden Kilometre in a perfect position, which we also did," Wellens explained after the stage. Gracious in defeat, however understandably disappointed after the undesired outcome to the stage. Lotto Soudal chased hard to bring back the day's breakaway, and each member sacrificed themselves for the goal of the overall win.

"Arnaud De Lie launched me perfectly towards the first sprint, where I took three seconds. The goal was to go full for the first sprint and then focus on the wheel of Schmid," Wellens revealed. However things took a turn to the wrong afterwards. "It looked very good after the first sprint but it went wrong towards the second sprint. That move of Lampaert did cost me the overall victory but his disqualification does not change anything of course.”

“You might also say that I lost the Belgium Tour in the time trial or the Ardennes stage… In any case, it was a really exciting battle and really entertaining to watch for the fans. Losing with such a small gap is never nice but as a team we can be proud of how we raced during the Belgium Tour and this gives confidence for what’s to come," the Belgian concluded. The 31-year old has shown strong form heading into the Tour de France nevertheless, and has brought the team enough points to close the gap to Team BikeExchange - Jayco.