Baloise Belgium Tour: Caleb Ewan sprints to victory on stage 3

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Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) sprinted to victory on stage 3 of the Baloise Belgium Tour in a bunch sprint in Scherpenheuvel-Zichem.

Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) was unable to accelerate out of Ewan’s slipstream, so had to settle for second place, while Michael Mørkøv (Deceuninck-QuickStep) took third place. 

Ewan finished off great work from his Lotto Soudal team, who formed a long lead-out train in the final three kilometres, and overcame the challenge of the other sprinters teams to place Ewan in the perfect position to sprint. 

Boy van Poppel (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert) was the first to start his sprint over on the right-hand side of the road, which prompted Ewan to emerge from behind his lead-out man and swing over from the other side of the road.

The Aussie used Van Poppel's slipstream for a moment, then immediately stormed past the Dutchman to sprint to the finish line. Ackermann was the only man able to stay on Ewan's wheel, which was enough to earn him second, but he did not have the legs to go past him when he attempted to in the closing meters.

"It was a tricky one," Ewan reflected, when asked about the finale. "We had a block headwind for the last three kilometres after the climb [the uncategorised but tricky Dongelstraat]. I'm so impressed with the job my team did. From 3km out, I had I think only four riders in front of me, as we had to use a few more guys than we wanted to to chase the breakaway, because it was coming back quite slowly.

"They did a great job getting into the climb in a good position, and then when we were at the top, we were all together. Basically, from there they pulled in the headwind the whole way, and no-one came around us.

"I'm lucky to have such strong and smart guys...We've integrated Tosh [Van der Sande] and Harry [Sweeny] into the lead-out, first at the UAE Tour and now here. I think that's what maybe we were missing, the two guys in front of Roger [Kluge] and Jasper (De Buyst].

Addressing the criticism he received by some last month for supposedly disrespecting the Giro d'Italia by abandoning it early, Ewan expressed how "it was actually a legitimate problem, that was the thing that annoyed me the most….to quit after seven days is not good for my preparation either, so it would have been silly for me to actually want to quit there."

The victory is a great sign of form for Ewan ahead of the Tour de France, especially given the calibre of sprinters he defeated to win the stage.

Aside from Ackermann, those top sprinters were not seen in the finale. Mark Cavendish lost his Deceuninck-QuickStep lead out man Michael Morkov, who ultimately opted to sprint for himself to take third place.

Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma), Giacomo Nizzolo (Qhubeka Assos), Cees Bol (DSM) and Tim Merlier were also nowhere to be seen, while Merlier's teammate Jasper Philipsen had been taken out of contention in a crash earlier in the stage.

Philipsen was able to continue, but the fact he had to spend time with the medic before getting back on his bike will be a cause for concern with the Tour de France fast approaching. 

Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep) finished safely in the peloton to retain his overall lead.

How it unfolded

On a sunny day in Belgium, five men formed a break at the start of the day with little fuss: Jan-Willem van Schip (Beat Cycling), Laurens Sweeck (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal), Cedric Beullens (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Mirco Maestri (Bardiani-CSF-Faizane) and Andreas Goeman (Tarteletto-Isorex).

Given how many quality sprinters there are at the race, and the determination of their teams to ensure they had a chance to sprint for stage victory today, there was never much hope that this breakaway would survive, and they're gap never extended to much above three minutes.

Van Schip had the combativity award in mind awarded for points gained at intermediate sprints, and was first over the line at an intermediate sprint early in the stage. Beullens outsprinted him later in the stage to win the second intermediate sprint, in an attempt to defend his teammate Robbe Ghys' lead in the classification, but Van Schip ensured he took the lead by winning the third and final sprint 27km from the finish.

Much of the stage passed without incident, although Nacer Bouhanni was one of half a dozen riders to go down in a crash 65km from the finish. He appeared unhurt, and rejoined the peloton with help from several of his Arkea-Samsic teammates about 7km later.

By the time the peloton crossed the finish line for the first time to complete the first of four laps of a finishing circuit at Scherpenheuvel-Zichem, their deficit was two minutes. That had been further reduced to about 1-30 by the end of the next lap.

There was another crash 28km from the finish, although this time only Jeremy Lecroq (B&B Hotels) went down, and was OK to continue.

Less fortunate was Jasper Philipsen, who crashed with Alpecin-Fenix teammate Kristian Sparagli 13km from the finish. He was hurt, and stayed on the ground to be attended by medics for over one minute.

Rejoining the peloton was too difficult at this point, with the pace up as the likes of Deceuninck-QuickStep, Lotto-Soudal and Bora-Hansgrohe made sure the break was caught in time, and that their sprinters were well positioned for the final climb of the uncategorised Dongelstraat, 3km from the finish.

The leading quintet remained out in front for the golden kilometre, meaning there was no fight in the peloton to pick up the available bonus seconds. They continued to work well together and did not give up the ghost easily, but were eventually caught 4km from the finish, just before the start of the right turn into the Dongelstraat.

Maestri and Beullens still had the legs to attack again on the climb, and then were counted by Piotr Havik (Beat Cycling), but he had Yves Lampaert (Deceuninck-QuickStep) on his wheel covering. Lotto-Soudal controlled matters in the peloton, and brought them both back 2.3km from the finish.

Lotto-Soudal continued their lead-out upon making the catch, and despite the efforts of teams like Total Direct Energie, Arkea-Samsic and Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert, were able to set Ewan up perfectly for the stage win.