Philipsen completes Renewi Tour with third stage win and overall victory

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) won stage 5 of the Renewi Tour in Leuven and took the overall title, adding a third stage win of the week to seal the general classification.

The stage covered laps of a Leuven circuit and came down to a bunch sprint.

Philipsen opened his sprint 300 metres out and held on to win from a group that had been whittled down over the closing laps after a few crashes.

It is the second consecutive day Philipsen has won, having taken stage 4 in Bilzen-Hoeselt in a photo finish from Kooij, and follows his stage 2 victory.

Robert Stannard (Bahrain-Victorious) and Frederik Frison (Pinarello Q36.5) went clear inside the opening four kilometres. 

Emil Herzog (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) and Edward Theuns (Lidl-Trek) attacked separately soon after, with Dries De Bondt (Team Jayco AlUla) and Hartthijs de Vries (Unibet Rose Rockets) forming a third group behind them.

With 110km to go the front pair led Herzog and Theuns by 3:04, the De Bondt group by 3:36 and the peloton by 3:58. The chasers merged with the leaders around 69km from the finish, and the breakaway took the intermediate sprints at Wijnpersstraat, Frison winning the first and Theuns the second.

Alpecin-Premier Tech had riders on the front from 165km out, later joined by UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Decathlon CMA CGM, NSN Cycling Team and Soudal Quick-Step. The gap fell by 35 seconds in ten minutes with 31km remaining.

The peloton split with 19km remaining, ten riders getting a small gap, and Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) attacked with Mikkel Bjerg driving behind. 

Matej Mohorič (Bahrain-Victorious) attacked at 6.7km and again at two kilometres out. Pavel Bittner (Team Picnic PostNL) and Tomáš Kopecký (Unibet Rose Rockets) bridged to the front group with 7.3km left, and by five kilometres the leading trio was Berckmoes, Philipsen and Kopecký.

Kopecký attacked at 5.4km and Berckmoes countered a moment later, with Philipsen closing both. Tim van Dijke (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) went at 3.9km and was joined by Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal Quick-Step) before being caught.

A crash with 1.8km to go brought down four riders including Aaron Gate (XDS Astana), Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling Team) and Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost). Carl-Frederik Bévort (Uno-X Mobility) attacked inside the final kilometre, then Davide Ballerini (XDS Astana) took over the front before Philipsen went at 300 metres to take another victory.