Stage 4 - De Panne > De Panne The tour concludes with the traditional timetrial, that's rather short with 11km of flat roads through the city of De Panne. Prologue skills may come into play as well. There's no really outstanding TT rider amongst the remaining GC contenders, even though Doull (GC's 14th) will certainly fancy his chances to move up into the Top-10 and maybe fight for a good stage result as well. Other solid TT riders amongst the GC's Top-20: Meersman, Blythe, Kuroeda, Matthews.. Van Asbroeck and Rowe at least handle prologues pretty well and tthey will at least aim to defend their GC places today.
Owen and Vanspeybrouck fighting for the GC victory, with Albert maybe joining the battle as well. Just marginal differences between Owen and Vanspeybrouck (with Owen being the slightly better prologue rider)..
As for the stage-win, other riders should stand out though: Brändle, Olman, van Rensburg, Li, Christensen/Steensen, Postlerger or prologue specialists like Chavanne or Hamza. It promises a thrilling decision.
Olman as the first favorite for the stage and he sets an early best time:
14'50" will be the time to beat today!
Hamza next:
+ 9" as 2nd so far..
Li as another serious contender for the stage:
+ 10" for a rather disappointing provisional 3rd..
Postlberger does better, but no best time anyway:
+ 6" as new 2nd at the finish..
Brändle as the next top favorite beside Olman:
+ 4" to also miss out on the long lasting best time from Olman!
Kuboki as a prologue specialist, who handles longer timetrials as well:
+ 3" as new provisional 2nd ahead of Brändle!
Würtz as his team's last option after Christensen (+ 7" as 5th) and Steensen (+ 15" as 10th) missed out on Olman's time as well:
+ 4" for Würtz as 4th at the finish!
Janse van Rensburg + 9" as provisional 9th:
And that's the provisional result at the finish with now just the Top-20 to come. As said before, there's no real threat for the stage-win left, except maybe Doull as 14th in the GC..
So let's continue with Doull then, who's amongst those GC's + 2.16 riders, who are fighting for the last few lower Top-10 spots in the GC:
+ 26" as provisional 18th at the finish..
Meersman as another at least solid TT rider and a great chance to score a huge result for his Signul Iduna team:
+ 35" to finish a good 28th on the stage eventually!
Blythe with a final chance to make this race at least "better" for himself:
+ 49" to finish just outside the stage's Top-50.. too less to attack the Top-10 in the GC, obviously!
Kuroeda as another Top-10 contender then:
+ 39" and not much slowe than Meersman..
An overview of the Top-20 in the final GC already: Doull living up to his expectations and moving up to 10th in the GC today. Meersman with a great race, too, going up to 11th thanks to his good performance in the final timetrial.
Kuroeda next best then, with Hamilton going past Blythe, who won't be happy with a 14th place in the final GC.. Zepuntke 17th ahead of Thomas and Maes: they all heavily struggled in those few timetrial kilometres..
Matthews as the big winner of those riders though, since he managed to beat Doull eventually:
+ 25" on the stage as 19th at the finish! That will be enough for at least a 9th place in the GC..
Rowe though defends his 8th place in quite a strong way:
+ 23" as 19th on the stage and the best late starter so far! Some pressure for Van Asbroeck as well..
Van Asbroeck does well, too, though and given his advantage on Rowe prior to the stage, he might have done enough to hold him off:
+ 33" as 27th at the finish!
Albert as the 3rd in the GC then. Let's keep it short, he would not put some pressure on the remaining two riders:
+ 1'25" on Olman and one of the worst Top-10 riders today..
Another overview first: Matthews going up to 9th indeed and he almost went past Kosic (+ 1.22 on the stage), who drops to 8th behind Van Asbroeck and Rowe!
Okbamariam heavily struggled as well (+ 1.16), but he narrowly defends his 5th place in the GC with just two seconds on Van Asbroeck eventually!
Flaksis (+ 1.26) one of the worst just like Albert, but the duo completes the 3-4 in the final GC nevertheless! A huge result for those Minions..
And now for the GC victory..
Vanspeybrouck as the first to cross the line, obviously. He's really not doing too well in timetrials, but of course that won't prevent him from trying today. Any small mistake could be decisive on this course and at least, it looks like he did perform to his standards:
+ 1'03" as 81st on the stage...
..and now Owen, who has to defend 2 seconds on Vanspeybrouck.. just like his opponent, the young gun ain't really known for proper timetrial skills, even though he may be slightly better in prologues. He's performing according to his "stats" as well then, but will it be enough to defend the race lead?
The clock stops..
+ 1'07" on Olman.. and oh nooooo, that's 4 seconds lost on Vanspeybrouck!
Olman celebrates his stage-win quickly.. a nice win for sure!
..and then comes Vanspeybrouck stepping onto the podium to celebrate the GC victory, that he missed by 31 seconds back in 2015 (to finish 2nd behind Summerhill). What a thriller in this final stage, as he goes past Owen by just two seconds! After his disappointing first stage and a gutsy ride on second day, it's a kinda deserved victory though.
Heart breaking 2nd for Owen, who should be still happy enough with a runner-up in the GC, a stage win and the U25 classification though! It's yet another good result for Podium Ambition in a cobbles race and with Matthews adding a strong 9th in the GC, it's definitely been a great stage race for the team.
As already confirmed, Albert completes the podium ahead of Flaksis. With Marcos (15th) and Zepuntke (17th) also inside the Top-20, it's also a great result for the Minions, which also win the team's classification by no surprise then.
Okbamariam completes the Top-5 ahead of Van Asbroeck, Rowe, Kosic, Matthews and Doull. A great result for him and Indosat will be happy with their decision to put a strong rider into stage one's early breakaway group. Just like for Podium, Minions and Iberia (even though Kosic dropped to 8th in the GC), it certainly paid off eventually.
Iberia, however, coming off this situation with the worst points score: Blythe adding a 14th place to Kosic's nice 8th place is not what those other teams achieved in the end. It's not the best start into the year for Blythe..
Van Asbroeck winning the points classification in addition to a nice GC result and a stage-win yesterday!
Owen can celebrate on the podium, too, and he certainly looks rather happy than sad now!
