Benelux Tour 2021 – Sonny Colbrelli wins as Matej Mohoric takes final stage win

Bahrain Victorious’ dominated the Benelux Tour with Sonny Colbrelli becoming the first Italian winner and team-mate Matej Mohoric taking the final stage win after seven days.

Colbrelli finished second behind Mohoric on Sunday, with Jumbo-Visma’s Tom Dumoulin settling for third.

Colbrelli and Tom Dumoulin attacked from the peloton in the closing stages giving themselves a 20 second break with 1.5km to go, but it wasn’t enough to catch Mohoric who won by 11 seconds.

Stage seven was a 181.8km twist on the Ronde Van Vlaanderen classic, leaving Namur for Geraardsbergen in the Ardennes reigion of Belgium.

Sonny Colbrelli of Bahrain-Victorious took the race lead on Saturday after winning stage six with Matej Mohoric and Victor Campenaerts following closely behind going into Sunday’s stage just 51 and 53 seconds behind.

Earlier in the day Philippe Gilbert, Oscar Riesebeek, and Casper Pedersen launched an attack with 118km to go, but it was soon closed down.

By 55km to go Casper Asgreen, Matej Mohoric and Victor Campenaerts had a 20 second lead on the chase group as they ascended the Bosberg for the first of three times, and was joined by American Brandon McNulty. The four-man group extended their lead up to one minute with 39km to go.

The race, formerly known as the BinckBank Tour, submitted four climbs three times in the latter part of the day starting with the cobbled Bosberg, Denderoordberg, Onkerzelestraat and the Muur van Garaardsbergen which is a sharp 1.2km cobbled climb at around 8% gradient.

The 17th edition of the race featured a “golden kilometre”, exclusive to the Benelux Tour and offers three intermediate sprints for bonus seconds. Sunday’s golden kilometre was in the final part of the race before ascending the deciding climb.