Benelux Tour: Colbrelli solos to stage 6 victory and leader's jersey

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Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious) continued his stellar season, winning stage 6 of the Benelux Tour with a long-range solo attack, and taking the leader's jersey in the process. 

The Italian champion crossed the line 42 seconds ahead of a small chase group led home by his teammate Matej Mohorič to complete an impressive 1-2 for Bahrain Victorious. They now sit in first and second in the overall, too, poised to take the overall win tomorrow, with Mohorič 51 seconds behind his teammate.

On a long, hilly, Liège–Bastogne–Liège-esque day, Colbrelli attacked on the first ascent of the Côte Bois des Mointes with Mohorič and Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates) 50 kilometres from the finish. 

As the time gap that this group had built up began to tumble due to a ferocious chase behind, Colbrelli attacked once more with 25km to go and was able to hold off the rest of the peloton.

“It was maybe the toughest stage of the career,” Colbrelli said at the finish, “it was maybe like the ones in the Tour de France, today was so difficult. Something I’ve never really done before. I think it will be another tough stage tomorrow and I’m going to try to recover, attack it again, hold the jersey and go full gas.”

How it unfolded

After a lively start, marked by a myriad of attacks, the day’s first breakaway formed, composed of Jonas Rickaert (Alpecin-Fenix) and, unusually, a former Tour de France winner- Geraint Thomas (Ineos-Grenadiers). Their gap was allowed to expand to seven minutes as Groupama-FDJ sat on the front of the peloton, defending Stefan Küng’s blue leader’s jersey. 

At the front of the race, meanwhile, Thomas’ pace proved too much for Rickaert, who was dropped on the first ascent of the Côte Saint-Roch with 54km to go. Simultaneously, the peloton exploded into small groups on the Saint-Roch’s lower slopes, and, on the following climb, the Bahrain Victorious pair of Colbrelli and Mohorič attacked along with Hirschi. Their acceleration doomed Thomas’ lone effort and the trio built up a precarious lead of around 40 seconds. 

Behind them, the chase group swelled on the flatter sections of the course and with the resulting influx of teammates, Deceuninck-Quickstep and Groupama-FDJ resumed their position at the head of the peloton. Under their watch, the gap began to fall and, by the time the race crossed the finish line to begin the final circuit, it was only 12 seconds.

On the second ascent of the Côte Saint-Roch, the peloton fractured once more. Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) and Victor Campenaerts (Team Qhubeka Nexthash) proved the strongest on this climb and bridged up to the leading trio while Küng, the overall race leader, was dropped.

As Dumoulin and Campenaerts joined the front group, Colbrelli made his race-winning move, attacking 25.6km from the finish. 

Initially, this acceleration was only designed to gain the bonus seconds available in the ‘golden kilometre’ where three sprints for three bonus seconds were scattered across the course. 

“I wanted to get the extra seconds, but I didn’t want to spend too much energy,” Colbrelli said at the finish. “I was afraid that they would get back to me- there were so many kilometres to get to the finish line, but it went well.”

He gathered the maximum nine bonus seconds in this kilometre, while his teammate Mohorič thrice won the sprint behind for the two bonus seconds available for second place, picking up six bonus seconds. Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) who had bridged across with Tiesj Benoot (Team DSM) and Jasper Stuyven (Trek Segafredo) took third place in each of these sprints.

Despite the strength of the group chasing Colbrelli, it was marked by that familiar, fractious non-cooperation often present in bike races, and was further disrupted by Mohorič who policed the front of the group to prevent any counterattacks from catching his teammate Colbrelli who held on to take the win.