August 24, 2025
The final stage is nicely poised for a GC battle of bonus seconds between Arnaud De Lie and Mathieu van der Poel. Tim Wellens could also be in the mix at 21 seconds but the race would have to explode and neither De Lie or van der Poel could be in the move. There is terrain around Leuven to shake up the race however. I count 29 categorized climbs on course, most around 600M long at 5%-9%. Being so close to Leuven, the race could have included the Moskestraat and other climbs from De Brabanste Pijl but instead, the course stays North for two large laps of 60KM and ends with three short laps through Leuven itself. The short laps are very similar to the ones from the the 2021 World Championships with three climbs on each lap. In total across the 185KM of racing, there is 1,600M of climbing. The repetitive nature of the climbs makes it tough to know whether the pure sprinters will be there at the end or not. The all important Green Kilometer comes 22KM from the finish and, depending on the situation of the break, could help form the final GC classification.
A strong group of four riders broke clear including Edoardo Affini of Visma-Lease a Bike, Kasper Asgreen of EF-Education EasyPost, Siebe Deweirdt of Flanders-Baloise, and Aivaras Mikutis of Tudor Pro Cycling. They had just 1 minute 20 seconds with 77KM to go on the way back into Leuven to start the short laps. Alpecin-Deceuninck and Intermarché-Wanty were chasing hard and had the entire peloton in single file. Bahrain Victorious took over and rode hard on the Chartreuzenberg and brought the break with 20 seconds with 68KM to go.
XDS-Astana were next to attack, sending Mike Teunissen on the Keizersberg with 54KM to go. The race strung out in small groups but most were able to get back to the front by the top of the Leopold Decouxlaan 4KM later. The break was also swallowed up in the process and the attacking continued by XDS-Astana. Alberto Bettiol put in a full effort up the Wijnpers climb and brought with him Fred Wright of Bahrain Victorious, a Decathlon AG2R rider, and Mathias Vacek of Lidl-Trek. Groupama-FDJ and Alpecin-Deceuninck brought the race back together again before crossing the finish line coming into 3 laps and 43KM to go.
Axel Huens of Unibet-Tietema Rockets and Davide Ballerini of XDS-Astana were the next attackers on the Keizersberg with 38KM to go. The bunch calmed for a moment and the gap went out to 20 seconds but it kicked off again when Mathieu van der Poel accelerated on the Wijnpers. Riders were chewing their stems and the elastic broke about 20 wheels back with race leader Arnaud De Lie as the last rider to latch on. There was lots of movement but no cohesion and as they crossed the line for 29KM to go, the race was back together with the exception of Ballerini who went off alone and had just 5 seconds advantage.
UAE-XRG took over with numbers and drove hard into the base of the Leopold Decouxlaan which contained the Green Kilometer within the climb. Van der Poel took the first sprint with De Lie in third, giving van der Poel the virtual race lead by 1 second. Neither scored in the next two sprints but the pace was so high up the Leopold Decouxlaan that a group split off the front with Wright, van der Poel, Bettiol, Tim Wellens of UAE-XRG, and Toms Skujiņš of Lidl-Trek. Wright was dropped from the group as van der Poel tried to get them to work together. Fortunately for De Lie, Lotto had friends in Soudal Quickstep and Picnic-PostNL and the gap was just 8 seconds through the bell lap with 14KM to go. Just 1KM later, the race was back together again but there were still three more climbs before the finish.
The peloton swelled to 50 riders deep over the Keizersberg but the attacking continued. Hometown boy Jasper Stuyven of Lidl-Trek, Lorenzo Milesi of Movistar, and Paul Magnier of Soudal Quickstep went on the move on the Leopold Decouxlaan with 7.5KM to go. Stan Dewulf of Decathlon AG2R, Thibau Nys of Lidl-Trek, and Valentin Madouas of Groupama-FDJ bridged up but the gap was only a few seconds by the bottom of the final time up Wijnpers with 5.5KM to go. Magnier did all he could to keep the group away and, by the top, only Nys able to stay with him. XDS-Astana brought the two riders back and Visma-Lease a Bike took leadership to control for a bunch sprint for Olav Kooij who was still in the group. Dries De Bondt of Decathlon AG2R took a flyer under 1KM to go but Clément Russo of Groupama-FDJ went to the front and built momentum to launch the sprinters into action. In the last 300M, De Bondt still had a gap. De Lie started his sprint long from 15 wheels back and got the jump on everyone. By the time van der Poel saw him from the other side of the road, it was too late and De Lie overtook De Bondt in the last 30M to take the stage win and with it, 10 bonus seconds. Van der Poel finished second in the sprint with De Bondt hanging on for third place.
De Lie won the race overall in spectacular fashion, 3 seconds ahead of van der Poel, thanks to the extra bonus seconds on the finish line. Wellens tried split the race but he had to settle for third overall, 31 seconds down.