Renewi Tour 2025 Stage 1

August 20, 2025 Team rosters look more like something we would see at the Tour of Flanders rather than a week long World Tour stage race but that is because of the nature of the five days of racing in the BENELUX. Each day has one Green Kilometer with three sprinters at the start, middle, and end of the kilometer. Each sprint has 3, 2, and 1 bonus seconds available and in a race that could come down to a handful of seconds, each one will be precious. Day one starts in Terneuzen and finishes in Breskens after 182KM of pan flat racing through Zeeland. The North Sea can blow up gusts and the Westerly direction of the course could catch wind coming in from the sea. The list of teams with quality sprinters in the field almost guarantees a bunch sprint. It was pleasant at the start but as they day wore on, the wind picked up and was blowing up to 40KM/HR. The race split on several occasions and with 70KM to go, there were only 16 riders at the front of the race with the peloton behind at 45 seconds. Intermarché-Wanty and Visma-Lease a Bike were not represented and were chasing. Like the classics, every corner was contested with changes of direction and switches from larger roads to roads that were not much more than a bike path. The chase continued and with 39KM to go, the gap was down to 22 seconds as the bunch passed through the village of Groede. With 26KM to go, the break away split up when Gianni Vermeersch of Alpecin-Deceuninck attacked ahead of the Green Kilometer. Rui Oliveira of UAE-XRG countered and took the first sprint with Dries De Bondt of Decathlon AG2R in second and Jarrad Drizners of Lotto in third. Oliveira and De Bondt got a gap on the rest and through the second sprint, it was the same order. De Bondt won the last sprint ahead of Oliveira with Drizners 5 seconds behind in third. The break reformed and when they got the bell for one more 22KM lap to go, they had less than 20 seconds on the peloton. There looked to be some disagreement in the bunch and Visma-Lease a Bike took their riders off the front. Intermarché-Wanty and Groupama-FDJ replaced the Dutch squad and got the gap down to 12 seconds with 7.5KM to go. Drizners attacked with Vermeersch but all 16 riders were reeled in with 5KM to go. Ineos led from 5KM into 1,500M from the line. Positioning got quite scrappy and it was Soudal Quickstep who led under 1KM to go and gave way to Picnic-PostNL. The washing machine was in full spin cycle and no sprinter had more than one rider with them. Pavel Bittner of Picnic-PostNL opened up first when his last lead out man pulled off at 250M. The finish was a slight drag up with a headwind and Bittner couldn't hold the speed. Tim Merlier of Soudal Quickstep came off the wheel and when he got into clean air, no one had the legs to come around. Arnaud De Lie of Lotto was second best with Juan Sebastián Molano of UAE-XRG in third.