No fourth straight win for Wout van Aert at Tour of Denmark as breakaway profits

Storm Ingebrigtsen of Uno-X Mobility won Saturday’s fourth stage of the Tour of Denmark in Faaborg after attacking from the day’s breakaway. Wout van Aert and Visma | Lease a Bike saw their winning run come to an end, although the Belgian retained the overall race lead.

For anyone looking for a summary of the first three days of the 2026 Tour of Denmark, needs only one name and three words: Wout van Aert. The Visma | Lease a Bike rider won the opening two stages in sprint finishes before also taking Friday’s hilly stage into Vejle.

As a result, he began stage four to Faaborg with a reassuring 20-second advantage over second-placed Lukas Kubis of Unibet Rose Rockets. Van Aert’s teammate Christophe Laporte occupied third place, leaving Visma | Lease a Bike in an ideal position—although the final two stages still had to be raced.

Van Aert and his teammates therefore needed to stay alert during the opening phase of stage four. Several strong riders became involved in the early battle to join the breakaway, including Danish riders Alexander Kamp and Casper Pedersen, as well as Lidl-Trek’s German powerhouse Max Walscheid. A 13-rider group eventually formed, with Visma | Lease a Bike’s Asleigh Barry and Unibet Rose Rockets rider Niklas Larsen also among them.

Alpecin-Premier Tech had missed the move and worked to bring the group back together, after which a new breakaway escaped. It contained Tommaso Bessega of Polti VisitMalta, Sébastien Grignard of Lotto, Storm Ingebrigtsen of Uno-X Mobility, Chris Juul-Jensen of Jayco AlUla, Axel Källberg of Lucky Sport Cycling Team and AIRTOX-Carl Ras rider Stian Rosenlund.

The peloton took some time to organise its pursuit, allowing the leaders to enter the finishing circuit in Faaborg with an advantage of two minutes and 30 seconds. Alpecin-Premier Tech eventually took responsibility, with Tibor Del Grosso among those working at the front. With 12 kilometres remaining, another heavy crash occurred, involving Picnic PostNL rider Nils Eekhoff among others.

The breakaway still held an advantage of more than a minute at that point, prompting other teams to join the chase. Tomas Kopecky attacked with seven kilometres remaining, but Van Aert personally moved to close him down. Visma | Lease a Bike waited a long time before committing riders to the pursuit and only moved forward properly during the finale. Even then, however, it appeared that the team was racing with the handbrake slightly engaged.

At the front, Ingebrigtsen seized his opportunity and accelerated away from his remaining breakaway companions with two kilometres to go.