Late heartbreak for Vacek after aggressive race

The story of the stage

Mathias Vacek and Soren Wærenskjold have been wrestling for Golden Kilometer time bonuses throughout the Baloise Belgium Tour, but after a back and forth battle, they enter the final stage with the same time gap established in the time trial – two seconds.

Vacek started the day 11 seconds down on the leader, and knew he would have to do something special to narrow the gap on his rival. With almost 150 demanding kilometers in the legs, Vacek made his move, and was alone in the lead. After 14km, a chasing trio joined him, and they initially worked well together to keep the chasing peloton at bay, 28 second behind. Vacek claimed all three Golden Kilometer sprints, netting him the valuable nine bonus seconds, but was still dreaming of holding on to the finish. As the peloton neared, his breakaway companions looked to him to do the bulk of the work, and the cooperation was lost.

The Czech champion gave everything to hold on, but was ultimately caught in the final kilometer as the road sharply climbed to the finish line. Jasper Stuyven was there, following the strongest riders on the Mur de Durbuy and crossed the line in a solid sixth place, in the process moving himself up to fourth on GC, giving Lidl-Trek a double threat in the top five overall.

In Mathias’ words

“We were ready to do some hard racing to try to break Wærenskjold. Uno-X did a hard pace form the start and the breakaway went already. We were waiting, we were patient, because the wind on the second half of the lap was so strong that it wouldn’t make sense to go early. We waited for the last lap, I did some selection on the steep climb. I had a gap with three guys behind me, who caught me before the climb with the Golden Kilometer, but I managed to still take the maximum seconds there, which I’m happy for. The wind was so strong that it was hard to keep the peloton away. In the final 5km the collaboration between us was not so good anymore. The guys were looking at me because I was going for GC but I was already alone in the start of the lap and it was hard for me to pace on the loop. It is how it is. In the final I didn’t have the legs anymore to go for the win but I’m happy with my performance. I tried, I was racing, and I’m proud of that.

“It will be all in for the Golden Kilometer tomorrow. For sure Wærenskjold is also strong on the flat and the sprints, so it will be hard to take this, but we go all in and see how it goes. So far I’m happy with the racing I did here and I will try to take the win tomorrow. It’s going to be a good race anyway. The Golden Kilometer concept is quite fun actually, it’s more racey. When the GC is close together then it’s really important to go for this so you have to focus also on this.”