Team Visma | Lease a Bike concludes Tour de Wallonie with another top-ten finish

The stage race concluded with a tricky stage that ended with four local laps. A large group managed to break away from the peloton early in the stage, but never got much space. After the last remaining escapees were caught, the battle for the stage win was set to begin. Watson attacked on the steep final climb and crossed the line solo. Hagenes finished shortly behind in fifth place.”I have mixed feelings about today”, sports director Maarten Wynants said. “We wanted to make the race hard and be with it if a group got away. In the end, 16 men attacked and we were not among them. That was not good.” In the final, Mick van Dijke sacrificed his chances for Hagenes. “That was well done. The boys did everything they could to put Per in a good situation. Per probably did the same effort as the winner, but he had to come from too far away.”

“Our goal was to win a stage and we didn’t succeed.”

Maarten Wynants

According to Wynants, the past week has been a good learning experience. “Our goal was to win a stage and we didn’t succeed. Still, with three top-five finishes and Per’s eighth place in the queen stage, we can look back on this race with satisfaction. The guys did well, especially when you consider that we only had four riders left after Loe van Belle crashed out.”

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Ethias-Tour de Wallonie
Stage 5

Result

Rankings

Result

1

Samuel Watson

Groupama – FDJ

04:47:48

2

Corbin Strong

Israel – Premier Tech

+00:00:04

3

Timo Kielich

Alpecin – Deceuninck

+00:00:04

5

Per Strand Hagenes

Team Visma | Lease a Bike

+00:00:04

Rankings

1

Matteo Trentin

Tudor Pro Cycling Team

22:02:46

2

Corbin Strong

Israel – Premier Tech

+00:00:00

3

Alex Kirsch

Lidl – Trek

+00:00:15

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Subjects

Cycling – World Tour men

1

Ethias-Tour de Wallonie