Flanders Baloise win stage 4 of the Eneco Tour and wave goodbye to the peloton in style

So far, the Eneco Tour has econsisted of two short time trials (both won by Jakob Soderqvist), a sprint stage won by Tim Merlier, and Friday’s Limburg stage. There, Mick van Dijke claimed the stage victory for Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, while Victor Campenaerts (Visma | Lease a Bike) took over the leader’s jersey.

On Saturday came the queen stage, which centered on the VAM mountain. It was during that stage in 2025 that the race took a decisive turn: at the time, Timo de Jong pulled off a major upset by winning on the former landfill site, while Christophe Laporte took a step toward his overall victory on Sunday.

While the weather had been good during the first few days, that wasn’t the case on Saturday in the northern Netherlands. It even hailed at the start in Hoogeveen, which later turned into a downpour. That didn’t stop Tars Poolvoerde (Lotto-Intermarché) and Ceriel Desal (Soudal Quick-Step) from going for the day’s breakaway group.

Julian Vergouw (Metec), Rick Ottema (EEW-DVK), and Victor Vercouillie (Flanders Baloise) were part of the breakaway, but the peloton didn’t let them get more than two minutes ahead. Since all the major teams wanted to be at the front on the narrow, wet roads in Drenthe, this naturally created a scramble to the front.

Visma | Lease a Bike, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, and Unibet Rose Rockets took the lead, but they continued to ride strongly even at the front of the pack. For leader Campenaerts’ team, that was actually just fine, since the time bonuses had already gone to other teams that way.

With 25 kilometers to go, attacks finally began, including ones by No. 2 Wessel Mouris (Unibet Rose Rockets) and Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe’s New Zealander Finn Fisher-Black. Visma | Lease a Bike, which still had five riders at the front, was able to control the situation relatively easily and then let the pace drop off.

That tactic worked in favor of the leaders, who still held a one-and-a-half-minute lead going into the penultimate VAM climb. They didn’t lose much ground there, so with 5 kilometers to go, we knew the lead group would take the win. Unfortunately, there was another crash at the back of the pack, involving Menno Huising once again.

There wasn’t really any tactical maneuvering among the front-runners, knowing that the race would ultimately be decided on the VAM climb. Ottema, who was competing in his final race as a road cyclist and was born in Groningen, led the group up the hill in Wijster. Vercouillie then took over and claimed the victory.