June 18, 2026
The only way we're going to get as much action as yesterday's opening stage is if the wind blows. The route between Merelbeke-Melle and Knokke-Heist is a traditional stage in the Tour of Belgium with its pan flat parcours and finish in the seaside town of Knokke-Heist after nearly 200 km. Before entering a 19 km finish circuit, the riders will have a 140 km ride out of the Ghent suburbs and North to the coast. Along the way, there are four cobbled sectors of the Lange Munte, Lange Ast, Brieversweg, and Kerkstraat. The riders will have three laps of the circuit with the Golden Kilometer on the penultimate lap with 25 km to go. Nearly every rider will be familiar with the finish straight so there should be no surprises. The last corner comes with around 600 meters to go and the last 100 meters rise to the top of a small sea dike. Tim Merlier has owned this finish in the past and with a second place yesterday, the smart money would go in that direction.
Race Summary
It was a party in Merelbeke-Melle at the sign-on with beautiful sunshine and clear blue skies. Thousands of people were out to see the riders roll out for a long day across Flanders. The continental teams were active when the flag dropped and six of them managed to get a rider in the break. Those up the road were Michiel Hillen of Baloise Verzekeringen-Het Poetsbureau Lions, Jonah Killy of Tarteletto-Isorex, Stijn Appel of BEAT-Saxo, Victor Broex of Metec-SOLARWATT-Mantel, Victor Hannes of Aarco, and Viktor Vandenberghe of Pauwels Sauzen-Altez Industriebouw. With 79 km to go, their advantage back to the peloton was 1 minute 35 seconds as they rolled turns on tree covered country lanes heading towards the coast.
NSN Cycling, Soudal Quickstep, and XDS Astana were all taking turns pulling the peloton along and had the race well under control. The six leaders made their way onto the circuit and turned left into the finish straight with a 1 minute 20 second lead. As is normal, the wind was coming from the right shoulder off the sea but it was not strong and would not be too much of a concern on the final lap.
Out of Knokke and around the back half of the circuit, the break managed to hold their 1 minute 20 second lead with only 10 seconds being taken off by the line with 2 laps to go. For the majority of the day, it was only Ayco Bastiaens of Soudal Quickstep and Krists Neilands of NSN Cycling controlling the break but they were struggling to make a dent in the gap. With 30 km to go, the break were visibly pulling harder and holding 1 minute 10 seconds. Bastiaens was still pulling a few kilometers later but more teams had moved forward to position coming into the technical second half of the lap in Knokke-Heist.
For the second day running, the break snagged all of the bonus seconds at the Golden Kilometer. Vandenberghe swept up two of the three sprints taking 8 seconds out of a possible 9 and immediately pulled the parachute and dropped out of the break. Hillen sat up as well leaving just four riders in the lead to fend off the peloton. With less firepower to chase down, the peloton was able to get the break to 42 seconds when they took the bell for one final 19.5 km lap. On the less technical middle part of the circuit, the peloton was able to open up the gas on wider roads and slashed the gap, catching the break comfortably with 9 km to go.
One kilometer later, the riders reached more road furniture with traffic dividers and diagonal running tram tracks which made the whole bunch nervous, especially given the proximity to the finish line. With 6 km to go, the road was narrow enough to block from side to side. Lotto Intermarché owned the left side with Soudal Quickstep lined up on the right. XDS Astana and Picnic-PostNL were also organized in the middle but were constantly fending off other trains from swamping their position. The push for the next corner came with 4 km to go which was won by Lotto Intermarché. Decathlon CMA CGM, Cofidis, and Alpecin-Premier Tech were able to organize and force their way forward but it was Soudal Quickstep who led through the penultimate corner with 900 meters to go. Soudal Quickstep jumped out of the final corner and any semblance of organization had disintegrated. Max Kanter of XDS Astana was the only one with a teammate left and the Kazakh team took charge. Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Premier Tech found his way onto Kanter's wheel but behind, Tim Merlier of Soudal Quickstep was making his run. Around 300 meters from the line, Merlier went full in his sprint, passed both Philipsen and Olav Kooij of Decathlon CMA CGM. Philipsen and Kooij each tried to come out of the slip stream on the rise in the last 100 meters but Merlier had plenty of power left to hold off the charge for the win. Kooij showed great form after a prolonged block of time off this Spring to take second by a hair to Philipsen in third.
Merlier took over the race lead by 6 seconds on Biniam Girmay and 8 seconds to Bart Kortleve of Metec-SOLARWATT-Mantel.