Baloise Belgium Tour: Biniam Girmay wins opener in hotly contested bunch sprint

“First of all I want to thank my teammates, they did a super incredible job,” Girmay said. “Already in the season we did quite a nice lead-out but we missed some big races. But today we did super incredible job. We were really calm and just focussed on our job, and we stayed humble, keeping organised the last 3k.

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“I’m super happy to win here in Belgium. It’s always super nice to win here in Belgium, and I’ve also trained here quite a few times on these roads, so I know a little bit the finish. It suits me really well, slightly uphill. I’m just happy to finish off my team’s work.”

His team had to fight hard to catch solo attacker Rune Herregodts (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), only sweeping past with 150 metres to the line.

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“He was super strong, we thought he would come back earlier, but he kept pushing in the last couple hundred metres,” Girmay said. “We were just lucky we caught him before the last 100 metres. This guy is always a good time trialist and can keep the speed.”

Girmay moves into the race lead after taking his first victory since the Clasica Almeria in February.

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Because of the time bonuses the breakaway claimed during the Golden Kilometre sprints, the Eritrean has a two-second advantage over Bart Kortleve (Metec- Solarwatt p/b Mantel) and three on Robbe Mellaerts (Baloise Verzekeringen-Het Poetsbureau Lions), with Merlier fourth at six seconds.

There were numerous attempts to foil the sprinters on the opening stage of the Baloise Belgium Tour, a 188.3-kilometre circuit around Scherpenheuvel-Zichem.

While the stage was fairly flat, repeated cobbled ascents on Kerkstraat (500 meters of cobblestones at 5.3%), Heuvelstraat (500 meters of cobblestones at 3.4%), Wingerstraat (500 meters at 5.1%), and Dongelstraat (600 meters at 5.2%) made for a tough circuit.

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Roy Hoogendoorn (Metec – SOLARWAT Mantel) attacked after taking the first intermediate sprint, and, joined by Olivier Godfroid (Baloise Verzekeringen – Het Poetsbureau Lions), the pair made the first breakaway after 20 kilometres of racing.

However, the peloton never let them get much more than two minutes, and the pair were caught with 72km to go. There was an immediate counter-attack, and a group of five contested the Golden Kilometre sprints before being reeled in.

More aggression followed across the next 50 kilometres, with the peloton splitting and reforming numerous times before Rune Herregodts (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) took off with 20km to go.

Alpecin-Premier Tech headed up the chase, keeping the Belgian within 30 seconds. Herregodts crested the final climb with a handful of seconds over the bunch, and held on through the kilometre to go banner, but was caught with just 150 metres to go.