Arnaud De Lie seals sensational home win and drops to the ground immediately after the finish

Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Intermarché) won stage four of the 2026 Tour de Wallonie in Eupen on Thursday. After a crazily strong final kilometre, the Belgian was the best on an uphill finish and settled all doubts of the past weeks and months in one go.

The Tour de Wallonie had so far been a race of tricky sprint finishes. Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) won stage one, before Ben Oliver of Modern Adventure surprisingly took stage two. On Wednesday, Laurence Pithie again won for Red Bull, but it was the ugly crash that really stayed with people.

Around 30 riders hit the deck hard, five of whom did not start again: Jon Barrentxea (Movistar), Milan Menten (Lotto-Intermarché), Arne Marit (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Asbjorn Hellemose (Jayco AlUla) and Axandre Van Petegem (Tarteletto-Isorex) all left the Tour de Wallonie.

Stage four ran from Dison to Eupen over 167 kilometres. In the opening phase there was an immediate breakaway, featuring a familiar name: cyclo-cross rider Pim Ronhaar. The Dutchman was joined by seven relatively unknown riders, while Netcompany INEOS in particular kept the gap in check.

Twenty kilometres from the finish, Ronhaar and his companions were caught just as Meeus returned after a puncture. Pithie also had some bad luck deep in the finale, but recovered astonishingly quickly and immediately responded when NSN rider Riley Sheehan launched an attack.

The American from NSN Cycling could not quite hold on despite all the power he showed, but that was mainly thanks to De Lie. The Belgian went to the limit and through it, and then immediately fell to the ground after the finish. Still, it brought a superb home-region victory after a truly fantastic final kilometre.