Lars Boom (Belkin) lost the leader's jersey in yesterday's queen stage of the Eneco Tour. The race leader fell off the pace the penultimate climb of the La Redoute to ultimately lose more than two minutes and regretted the bad moment that had cost him a shot at overall victory.

It wasn't to be for Lars Boom at this year's Eneco Tour. After an impressive ride during the opening 5 stages, the defending champion had set himself well up for a repeat win but it all came to nothing in yesterday's queen stage in the Ardennes.

The tough stage contained three passages of the famous Cote de la Redoute and the second time up the steep slopes, it became too much for the race leader who was in unfamiliar terrain. He briefly fought his way back to the main group but when the going got tough towards the end, he once again lost contact.

“During the last ascent of La Redoute, I had a bad moment and at that point, a group broke free,” he explained “I’ve felt good all week but today was just extremely difficult.”

The race finishes with a mini Tour of Flanders. Last year Boom finished 2nd on the stage and he has not given up hope of performing well in his preferred terrain.

“I hope to excel one more time tomorrow,” he explained yesterday.

Instead, Belkin's GC hopes now lie on the shoulders of young Wilco Kelderman. The Dutchman rode an aggressive race but missed out on the move that finally stuck.

The recent Tour of Denmark winner felt that his legs had allowed him to end higher up the rankings than his 12th place and his overall 8th place was no consolation.

"I cannot be satisfied with this. I have made a few wrong choices," he said. "I tried to attack a few times, but the one time I did not jump, a group got away. I was waiting for Chavanel to close the gap since he was the best placed rider, but because his teammate Stybar was upfront, he didn’t do anything.” 

Sports director Nico Verhoeven blamed a crash that had taken out Philippe Gilbert and most of his BMC team for the uncontrollable finale that had seen Kelderman lose time.

“Thanks to that spill, the control was gone," he said. Normally, BMC would have closed the gap to the leaders for Gilbert, but there were just breakaways now. You needed a little luck to get in the right escape, and Wilco was just unlucky."

Verhoeven didn't regret Boom's performance.

“Lars was okay today,” Verhoeven said. “But the parcours was really hard and Lars of course isn’t a traditional climber. In addition, he has been giving everything all week long. It's sad that we have lost the leader's jersey but that’s reality for now. Tomorrow, we’ll try to win the stage and help Wilco to end up as high as possible in the GC.”

Staring at 14.15 CEST you can follow the final stage on CyclingQuotes.com/live.