Van Asbroeck Wins Tour De Wallonie Stage Four

29 July 2014 04:32

Gianni Meersman of Omega Pharma Quick Step continued to lead the race going into a third stage of 174.9kms from Herve to Waremme.

This was a brutal stage of eleven climbs which started with the Category One Mur d'Eupen after nineteen kilometres and had three more category one climbs including the last one on the Mur d'Amay after 157.7kms, with the rest category two climbs featuring the Cote de la Gileppe after 28.5kms, as well as three hot spot sprints.

Sébastien Delfosse (Wallonie-Bruxelles) took the Mur d'Eupen climb before Meersman added to his points tally by taking the first intermediate sprint at Welkenraedt.

Three men got up the road in Jelle Wallays (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Kevin Van Melsen (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) et Maxime Anciaux (Wallonie-Bruxelles) and were joined by Stijn Devolder (Trek Factory) who took the six points on the Côte dela Gileppe climb.

Together, they took a lead of 3.30 over the peloton,. heading towards Stavelot and Francorchamps, home of the F1 track with Melsen taking the third, fourth and fifth climbs to earn twenty points.

Melsen also took the category one Côte de Saint-Remacle as the lead of the four in front dropped to 2.52 with 95kms remaining on a very wet day.

The next climb - the Côte de Werbomont also was taken by Melsen to put him eighteen points behind Chris Juul Jensen in the King Of The Mountains competition.

The quartet were still together as Maxime Anciaux (Wallonie-Bruxelles) shot away to take the second sprint at Ouflet after 102.9kms of racing and had a lead of 2.43.

With forty kilometres left, Devolder attacked and was followed by Melsen and Wallays with Ancieux and Gutierriez some 37 seconds behind and 1.22 ahead of the peloton.

Melsen took the eighth, ninth and tenth climbs but on the final climb of the Mur D' Amay, he had been caught and passed by Pim Lithgart of Lotto Belisol, who took the ten points.

Lithgart sailed over the final sprint ‎before a new attack featuring Thomas Degand, Maxime Montfort and Tim Wellens.

That break was caught ‎but inside the final twenty kilometres and Wellens attacked again. Only to be stopped by an attack from Kochetkon, Fedrigo and Lithgart.

All three were a threat to the General Classification and were pulled back, allowing another raid from W‎ellens with eleven kilometres to go.

That was thwarted as was an attack by Van Hoecke and it set up a massive sprint which was won by Topsport's Tom ‎Van Asbroeck ahead of ‎ Meersman and Kuznetsov.

Source: DSG