Baloise Belgium Tour 2024 Stage 5

June 16, 2024 The race starts and finishes under the Atomium for the final stage. Seven riders got up the road but the gap was never large and was down to 40 seconds with 80KM to go. Lidl-Trek were eager to chase to give Mathias Vacek a chance to grab Golden Kilometer bonus seconds, his only real chance to unseat Søren Wærenskjold of Uno-X Mobility in the overall. The last of the break was caught with 100M to go before the first Golden Kilometer sprint, 49KM from the finish. It was mano a mano between Vacek and Wærenskjold. Wærenskjold took first with Vacek in his wheel. Alec Seagert of Lotto-Dstny attacked to take the second sprint, no bonuses for Vacek or Wærenskjold. Israel-Premier Tech went for the third sprint, taken by Sander De Pestel of Decathlon AG2R, meaning that if Wærenskjold stayed in the bunch and Vacek didn't take any bonuses in the finish, Wærenskjold would be the overall winner. Various attacks tried get away but the terrain wasn't right and there were plenty of sprint teams in tact to bring things back. In the sprint, Alpecin-Deceuninck led the bunch through the final corner and dropped Jasper Philipsen off with 200M to go. Tim Merlier of Soudal Quickstep was almost caught on the barrier side but managed to get his front wheel clear to move to his right into clean air. Merlier had the strongest punch and came passed Philipsen to take the win. Tom Van Asbroeck of Israel-Premier Tech got in for third, importantly taking the final bonus seconds away from Vecek who narrowly missed out, finishing fourth on the day. In the GC, Wærenskjold took the top step, Vecek second and Alex Aranburu of Movistar in third.