The start and finish, in Essen and Hoogerheide respectively, are only 10km apart as the crow flies, but for the third Benelux Tour stage riders were sent on a 168.3km loop around Belgium and the Netherlands.
On paper the course was shaping up to be a great chance for the sprinters, but they were caught off guard by an early breakaway. Luke Durbridge and Arjen Livyns, two riders who also tried their luck in the first stage, were joined by Taco van der Hoorn, Samuele Battistella, Mathias Norsgaard and Thimo Willems.
With Durbridge a close eighth in the standings, the peloton kept the six-rider group within reach. After the first Super 8 Checkpoint sprint Livyns decided to sit up and head back to the peloton, safe in the knowledge that the 10 points he scored would be the best possible result. But that proved to be the wrong decision, because the five remaining leaders shifted to another gear with 40km to go and put the peloton under real pressure in a technical final.
The sprinters’ teams didn’t manage to catch them, and in the sprint Van der Hoorn proved to be the fastest to take a shock win. Norsgaard and Durbridge completed the podium, while Stefan Bissegger remained in the overall lead. Durbridge takes over the Super 8 Checkpoint jersey, while in the Teamleader Points Classification Phil Bauhaus snatches the leaders’ jersey away from Tim Merlier.
