Eventually a small group did go up the road including Luke Rowe, Dries de Bondt, Jasper de Buyst, Luca Mozzato and Fran Miholjevi´c. A very good group, but the peloton never let the pace go with counter-attacks flying off, the quintet never had any chance of surviving the acceleration from the peloton.
With around 95 kilometers to go there was a crash in the peloton which caused a split, the breakaway was caught and Team Visma | Lease a Bike pushed the pace on a climb, further breaking apart the peloton. The Dutch team again was in full control of the action.
With 88 kilometers to go Wout van Aert attacked, followed by
Tim Wellens,
Oier Lazkano and Laurence Pithie. Three teammates were in the small chasing group. Eventually Pithie was dropped leaving three riders in front, and was joined by Matteo Jorgenson and Matej Mohoric coming from behind.
However the front trio's gap was expanding to all groups behind and the victory was in front. The rest of the chasers were group by group caught by the peloton but the advantage was very big towards the end. Wellens launched an attack with just over three kilometers to go in a dash to drop van Aert, but the Belgian responded promptly whilst Lazkano struggled to match. The trio then went into a standstill into the finish line.
Lazkano tried to surprise with a late attack but to no avail. Van Aert followed and then sprinted to victory, beating Wellens and the Spanish champion. Christophe Laporte was the best of the rest in the bunch sprint that took place behind.