Eneco Tour 2016: Stage 4

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January 1 - September 25, Aalter, Netherlands/Belgium, Road - WorldTour

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Welcome to our live coverage of stage 4 of the 2016 Eneco Tour, a tough, undulating 202km leg from Aalter to St-Pieters-Leeuw. 

 

Hi there, and a warm welcome back to our live coverage of the Eneco Tour. It may be September, but this Dutch/Belgian race lets us pretend it's spring, and today's stage four sees the terrain start to get pretty lumpy, with some cobbles thrown in for good measure. 

As we pick up the action, there are just over 100km remaining, so we're pretty much half-way through. There's a four-man breakaway with a lead of around four minutes - we'll bring you the names in a second - but the terrain becomes increasingly difficult as the stage goes on. 

Here's the stage profile

Boonen taken to hospital after crash

So, the race goes on without Boonen, and we have four riders in the breakaway

The gap to the breakaway is falling quite quickly now, and they currently have less than two minutes over the bunch, where the pace is high with the cobbles having begun. 

80km to go and it seems our breakaway quartet won't be out there for too much longer. The gap is now under a minute and falling all the time. 

The four leaders look over their shoulders and can see the rapidly-advancing peloton. The pace is really high back there with a number of riders keen to push on. 

The race comes back together just ahead of the first crossing of the finish line. BMC and Sky lead the bunch onto the Brabantsebaan sector of cobbles. It's 2.2km long. 

60km remaining from 202km

Tom Dumoulin is on the attack.

The Giant-Alpecin rider heads off the front of the bunch, some riders try to follow, and the race is starting to split up. 

Dumoulin is joined by a handful of riders but he kicks on again. 

Michael Matthews is one of the riders who has joined Dumoulin, who also has a teammate there. They carved out a gap on a small incline and now they're giving it everything on a gentle downhill run. 

Tinkoff furiously lead the chase

Just as I was about to tell you that the riders with Dumoulin were Georg Preidler (Giant-Alpecin), Lars-Peter Nordhaug (Team Sky), Chris Juul Jensen (Orica-BikeExchange), Daniel Oss (BMC), and Marco Haller (Katusha), they are reeled in. 

Several injections of pace have followed that catch, with Niki Terpstra among those to accelerate and just test the water.

This is racing of the uncontrolled variety we're used to seeing at the Classics. Riders one after another just pinging off the front. 

Nelson Oliveira is the latest to attack and he opens up a sizeable gap. He's joined by Nico Denz, who comes through for a turn only after considerable persuasion. 

Oliveira and Denz are working well together now and they have 10 seconds over the bunch here, which is still splitting up under the pressure. Riders off the front, riders off the back. 

46km remaining from 202km

The duo's escape comes to nought as they're caught by a group of eight or so that has clipped off the front of the bunch. 

Nathan Haas is drilling it on the front for Edvald Boasson Hagen. This is a big, strong group, and there are three riders in between them and the bunch. The gaps, however, are tiny. 

40km remaining from 202km

More changes in the race situation as the Astana duo of Dmitriy Gruzdev and Andrey Grivko set off on a two-up bid for freedom.

The Astana duo took advantage of a lull in the pace after that strong leading group was caught. 

The sky-blue men have carved out a lead of 30 seconds. Pavel Brutt hits the front to try and keep things under control. He's working as part of the plan to put Peter Sagan into the race lead. 

The Astana men mop up the big points at the Primus intermediate sprint, but it's contested behind as McNally, who was in the break earlier, tries his hand, before a Topsport rider pips him, defending the black jersey of his teammate Bert Van Lerberghe.

32km remaining from 202km

It's straight onto the cobbles as they hit the Brabantsebaan once again. There are pretty wide sections of smooth concrete on either side of the pavé, which is where most of the riders find themselves. 

Crash. An Astana rider comes down as the bunch is forced to take on a nasty U-turn on gravel as the road switches from pavé to tarmac. It's Laurens de Vreese, and he gets back up and is on his way. 

Sky hit the front now as there are more cobbled suburban streets now. The riders are on the pavements here. 25 seconds is the gap.

26km remaining from 202km

Martin is 20 seconds down on GC, so certainly a danger.

Tom Dumoulin is making his way over to Martin. That's quite a duo.

The Astana duo are still looking strong. They are 20 seconds ahead of Martin/Dumoulin and 30 seconds ahead of the bunch. 

Daniel Oss (BMC) leads the chase in the bunch. 

Martin and Dumoulin are in no-man's land here. They're equidistant between the two groups and the Dutchman doesn't know what to do for the best. He waves his hand at Martin - they're not closing in on the two leaders here. To commit or not?

19km remaining from 202km

You'd ordinarily back a duo of Martin and Dumoulin against anyone but it doesn't look like they'll be able to pull anything off here. 

The two leaders hit the Bruine Put climb. This could shape the race behind with the eight per cent gradients. 

Martin and Dumoulin are caught.

Jasper Stuyven attacks from the bunch

The gap is closing to the two leaders now but they take a handful of seconds onto the downhill.

12km remaining from 202km

There's a group of seven leading the chase as the peloton splits under the pressure. Boasson Hagen and Martin in there. 

11km remaining from 202km

Lotto Soudal hit the front of the bunch in numbers and could well tee up Greipel for victory. 

Eight seconds is the gap as Dimension Data weigh in. 

Kristoff has two men in front of him, but Peter Sagan right behind him. 

The leading trio extend their lead now, back up slightly to 12 seconds, but the odds are still stacked against them. 

Jay Thompson hits the front for Boasson Hagen, while Lampre-Merida also show an interest for Sacha Modolo. 

Haven't seen Kittel yet...This could be a chance for Greipel to send out a message to the German Worlds selectors

5km remaining from 202km

Replays shows the cause of that disruption at the roundabout - a motorcycle up ahead crashed as it came round and riders had to avoid it. 

3km remaining from 202km

2km remaining from 202km

2km remaining from 202km

Katusha make their presence felt while FDJ come up on the right. 

Crash! Around 10 riders taken out. Was that Matthews?

It is Matthews. He's out of the sprint

Here we go then

Demare up there. Sagan biding his time.

Kristoff opens it up but Sagan is coming through, and now Greipel on the left!

Greipel takes it! Photo finish

Or is it Sagan? So close!

We see the photo finish as it is indeed Sagan, by a tyre's width. The world champion receives the belated news and punches the air. 

Sagan bumped shoulders with Demare before taking Kristoff's slipstream and powering past. Greipel was coming through really strongly on the left but just ran out of road, and Sagan secured the win with a superior bike throw. 

Sagan picks up 10 bonus seconds for that victory and consequently is the new leader of the race, taking over the white jersey from Rohan Dennis. 

The photo finish

1 Peter Sagan (Svk) Tinkoff Team 04:42:12
2 André Greipel (Ger) Lotto Soudal
3 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Team Katusha
4 Arnaud Demare (Fra) FDJ
5 Dylan Groenewegen (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo
6 John Degenkolb (Ger) Team Giant-Alpecin
7 Reinardt Jans Van Rensburg
8 Amaury Capiot (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen - Baloise
9 Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Trek-Segafredo
10 Luka Mezgec (Slo) Orica-BikeExchange

General classificaiton after stage 4

Here's our initial report from the race:

Sagan speaks

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