A little over a month after wining a stage in the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe, Jonas Ahlstrand again proved how far he has come as a sprinter when he was the best of the rest behind the giants Tom Boonen, ANdré Greipel and Theo Bos in the first stage of the Tour of Belgium.

Jonas Ahlstrand has sprinted to fourth place on the opening stage of the Baloise Belgium Tour for Team Giant-Shimano in a hectic sprint finish.

With Team Giant-Shimano having an eye on a strong finish overall it was also important that the guys finished in the front group which they managed, avoiding some late crashes.

The stage took its time to get settled and the race was still together at the first sprint of the day after 21 kilometres. It wasn’t long after this point though that three riders pulled away, all from smaller Belgium teams making things more controlled back in the bunch.

With just over 15km to go to the finish, despite some added fire power in the break, the race was back together and heading for a bunch sprint.

The plan for the team was to set the sprint up for Ahlstrand and all was falling into place until Koen De Kort lost the lead-out after getting caught up in a crash. Roy Curvers managed to lead Jonas through into a good position, staying with him until late on from which point Ahsltrand was able to go full gas to the line, taking fourth place.

As a reward for his effort, Ahlstrand also had a visit to the podium where he collected the jersey for leading the best young rider classification after the opening stage.

Team Giant-Shimano coach, Aike Visbeek said after the stage: “Everything was nicely under control until the manic finish where things got pretty tight. We were missing Koen in the lead-out after getting caught out with a crash but Roy did a great job of staying calm with Jonas and guiding him through.

“Jonas then did a strong sprint to the line to take fourth behind some of the fastest sprinters, proving how he is developing and getting faster. The guys for the GC finished in the same time too which is good for the coming stages.