Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) won the opening stage of the Tour de Wallonie, timing his powerful sprint to perfection in Lobbes after an attacking finale.
Two laps up the short but steep Mur de Thuin climb led the riders into the final 10km, and racing split up several times on Monday's stage 1, with Krists Neilands (NSN) and Kim Heiduk (Netcompany Ineos) among the attackers.
Eventually, seven of the top puncheurs got up the road, but they failed to cooperate with 6km to go, allowing Meeus and all the sprinters to get their chance at fighting for the stage win. Neilands tried one last late attack just before the final kilometre, but he was swallowed up by the charging fast men.
Modern Adventure seemed to have come to the front of the bunch with the best timing in the last 300 metres, but Ben Oliver had too long to go once he started his sprint, with Meeus, Anders Foldager (Jayco AlUla), and Heiduk coming around him before he reached the line.
"I'm very happy. The team did a really good job the whole day," said Meeus. "It was quite a hard finish, but I managed to have a good sprint. The timing and the legs were good.
"There was a late attack in the last kilometre, but also this we managed to pace quite well. I had good timing and then I managed to take the win. We expect another sprint tomorrow, so we'll try to go for a top result again."
Early action on stage included a brief pause to racing, so that the riders could safely get around a section of subsided road. When racing resumed, the original one-man breakaway was caught, before three more got up the road: Dries De Bondt (Jayco AlUla), Samuel Flórez (Modern Adventure) and Jarno Bellens (Baloise Verzekeringen - Het Poetsbureau Lions). They were caught in the last 18km, allowing the puncheurs and sprinters to battle out the stage win.
Results
Position |
Rider (Team) |
Time |
|---|---|---|
1 |
Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) |
4:13:32 |
2 |
Anders Foldager (Jayco AlUla) |
st |
3 |
Kim Heiduk (Netcompany Ineos) |
st |
4 |
Ben Oliver (Modern Adventure) |
st |
5 |
Milan Menten (Lotto-Intermarché) |
st |
6 |
Liam Slock (Lotto-Intermarché) |
st |
7 |
Joppe Heremans (Van Rysel Roubaix) |
st |
8 |
Niels Vandeputte (Alpecin-Premier Tech) |
st |
9 |
Natnael Tesfatsion (Movistar) |
st |
10 |
Carlos Canal (Movistar) |
st |
