{"id":750457,"date":"2026-06-20T23:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T23:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/750457\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T23:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T23:56:09","slug":"did-olav-kooij-punch-his-tour-de-france-ticket-with-baloise-belgium-tour-stage-4-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/750457\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Olav Kooij punch his Tour de France ticket with Baloise Belgium Tour stage 4 win?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After having postponed the start of his season due to a lingering virus, Olav Kooij<\/a> claimed three victories in a short time, starting with two stage wins at Boucles de la Mayenne at the end of May, and then added the stage 4 win at Baloise Belgium Tour<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Not only was the Decathlon CMA CGM rider the fastest in Belgium, but he also outsprinted Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) in a hectic finale.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Dutch sprinter agreed that beating proven fastmen like Merlier and Philipsen, both former Tour de France stage winners, with Philipsen also a green jersey winner, gave him confidence heading into the rest of the season. He then hinted that the Tour de France itself may be on his radar this year.<\/p>\n

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“I assume I can also fight duels with those men in the Tour, that’s something to look forward to,\u201d Kooij said in Dutch after winning Baloise Belgium Tour stage 4, according to a report in Wielerflits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis [victory] gives a lot of satisfaction. Especially after a missed start, it’s extra nice to return like this. I think we handled it well by first fully restoring and then rebuilding. The result is that I am now immediately returning to my old level.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the chaotic finale, Kooij lost his teammates and had to surf wheels until he slotted behind Merlier and used the slipstream to take a photo-finish victory.<\/p>\n

It is no secret that Kooij transferred from Visma-Lease a Bike to the French WorldTour team to get more opportunities to lead a sprint train at the Tour de France. But illness delayed that debut, and in the meantime, teammate Paul Seixas enjoyed a meteoric early season, earning himself a fast-tracked spot at the 2026 Tour.<\/p>\n

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Whether the team decide to take Kooij remains to be seen, but either way, Seixas is bound to be the focal point of this squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After having postponed the start of his season due to a lingering virus, Olav Kooij claimed three victories…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-750457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}