Renewi Tour 2024 Stage 4

August 31, 2024 There is only 400M of elevation over 180KM making this the flattest stage of the week. The wind was also not strong so teams would have to come up with other ways to foil Lidl-Trek and their dominant sprint train. Bert Van Lerberghe of Soudal Quickstep, Dries De Bondt of Decathlon AG2R, Jan Maas of Jayco AlUla, Stephan De Bod of EF-Education EasyPost, Luca Van Boven of Bingoal-WB, and Alex Colman of Flander-Baloise took off in the break for the day. Their lead was pulled back from 2 minutes to around 40 seconds with 55KM to go but it stuck at that margin for over 30KM. Alpecin-Deceuninck put two riders to the front but the gap held strong. Lidl-Trek and Intermarché-Wanty each threw a rider into the chase and that was the firepower needed. The bunch got within 8 seconds at 13KM to go and De Bondt attacked. He was able to last a few more kilometers but was brought to heel with 8KM remaining. The fight kicked off with 2KM to go as the road widened position was crucial. Lidl-Trek took the final corner at 300M but Alpecin-Deceuninck got up to speed quicker and took the better line. Jasper Philipsen was dropped off perfectly and won by a full bike length. Christophe Laporte of Visma-Lease a Bike got up for second with Arnaud De Lie of Lotto-Dstny taking third.