Baloise Belgium Tour 2024 Stage 4

June 15, 2024 The race headed to the Ardennes, just South East of Huy, for the fourth stage. Five local laps with nearly 2,900M of climbing would give riders the best opportunity of the week to make a difference in the GC. Twelve riders made the break but only eight were remaining with 80KM to go, holding a gap of 90 seconds. Flanders-Baloise rode in the peloton to bring their riders up to defend their lead in the intermediate points classification. In the process, the race was all within 20 seconds. Jago Willems of VolkerWessels attacked the break to go solo, increasing the lead to 50 seconds with 50KM to go while the rest of the break was stuck in the middle. A few riders bridged to the break but Uno-X Mobility were chasing behind. Coming into 1 lap to go, the fight for position was on to get to the front before the narrow streets of the finish climb of Mur de Durbuy. The break was swept up as attacks started. Nothing stuck but the group was reduced to about 50 riders. Mathias Vacek of Lidl-Trek was the first to put in a real attack on the climb of the Petit Somme. Lorenzo Rota of Intermarché-Wanty, Joseph Blackmore of Israel-Premier Tech, and Jenno Berckmoes of Lotto-Dstny attacked behind Vacek but it took them over 10KM to get to him. The four had 27 seconds with 14KM to go and the Golden Kilometer still to come. Vacek led the break through all three Golden Kilometer sprints to take 9 bonus seconds as Uno-X Mobility were losing teammates for race leader Søren Wærenskjold. Decathlon AG2R came to the rescue however and picked up the workload. Members of the break were missing turns and with 2.5KM to go, the peloton had them in sight. The break was caught with 400M to go as the bunch sprinted up the steep Mur de Durbuy. Pierre Gautherat of Decathlon AG2R was turning himself inside out to get to the line first but Alex Aranburu of Movistar came passed in smaller gear to win by a bike length. Gautherat finished second with Jasper Philipsen taking an impressive third place. Wærenskjold did enough to keep his GC lead but Vacek cut it back to 2 seconds with his collection of bonus seconds.