Lars Boom (Blanco) repeated last year's win in the queen stage of the Ster ZLM Toer with a blistering attack on the final small climb to La Gileppe, holding off Davide Rebellin (CCC) and Maurits Lammertink (Vacansoleil). The victory was enough to catapult him from 3rd to 1st on GC with just one completely flat stage remaining.

Blanco has had amazing success in one of their biggest home stage races, the Ster ZLM Toer. On Wednesday, Robert Wagner and Lars Boom made it a 1-2 in the prologue and on Thursday Theo Bos beat Andre Greipel, Mark Cavendish and Marcel Kittel to make it two in a row for the Dutch team.

The team missed out on the win yesterday when Bos had to settle for 4th behind the three sprinting giants but today the Dutchmen came back on track as Boom one the queen stage. A blistering attack on the final rise to the finish in La Gileppe saw the Blanco GC rider get clear of the peloton and he managed to keep his gap all the way to the line, holding off Davide Rebellin and Maurits Lammertink. Last year's queen stage followed an almost identical route and on that occasion the winner was - Lars Boom.

The race had left the Netherlands for its queen stage which took in 186km in the Belgian Ardennes. With the Cote de Rosier and the Col de la Redoute both included in the route, the stage was some kind of a mini Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

Early in the race 9 riders managed to escape the peloton's clutches ad Matteo Trentino (Omega Pharma-Quick Step), Adam Hansen (Lotto-Belisol), KOM leader Martijn Keizer (Vacansoleil), Christopher Juul-Jensen (Saxo-Tinkoff), Nathan Haas (Garmin), Sebastien Delfosse (Crelan), Mateusz Taciak (CCC), Huub Duijn (Cycling Team De Rijke) and Daan Soete (Telenet-Fidea) broke clear. They rode hard to build up a gap and the pace was too much for Soete who dropped off early on and fell back into the peloton.

At the top of the day's first climb after 18,1km, the escape was 3.10 ahead of the peloton and Keizer made sure to crest the summit in first position to extend his lead in the mountains classification. In the peloton, Blanco showed their intentions as they lend the Argos-Shimano team of race leader Kittel a hand.

For most of the stage, the gap remained stable between 2.45 and 4.20, going up and down in different places of the course. Up ahead, Keizer took maximum points on most of today's climbs to continually strengthen his grip on the mountains jersey.

With 76km to go, the riders had to tackle the famous La Redoute climb and the steep slopes were the undoing for Taciak. The Pole could not keep up the pace and fell back into the peloton which rode over the climb at a modest pace, trailing the front by 3.40 at the top.

The gap even went back up to 4.15 before the peloton started to chase in earnest. With 40km to go, the advantage had been reduced to 1.30 while the peloton had broken into pieces on the many difficult climbs.

With the peloton in full pursuit, the break upped the tempo and so Keizer and Duijn fell off the pace. Hansen, Juul Jensen, Trentin, Haas and Delfosse still had 25 seconds in their hands with 25km to go while the dropped riders had all been reabsorbed by the peloton.

For a long time the quintet managed to keep the peloton at bay but with 15km to go, only 5 seconds were left of their advantage. Juul Jensen and Hansen attacked and were chased by Haas who was joined by an attacking Pim Ligthart (Vacansoleil) while Delfosse and Trentino were caught by the peloton.

Argos-Shimano was still in control of the peloton and with 10km to go, they brought all escapees back into the fold. That was the signal for Dries Hollanders (Metec) to go on the attack and the young Belgian did an outstanding job in holding off the peloton.

His chances of success were increased when Coen Vermeltfoort (Cycling Team De Rijke) joined him and the duo had a 7-second gap with 5km to go. 3km further up the road, they still had 6 seconds in their hands but moments later it was all over for the duo.

A BMC rider made the first attack on the final rise up to the finish but ne got nowhere. Instead, Boom put down the hammer and no one was able to reel the Dutchman back in. For the second year in a row he crossed the line in first position to make it three Blanco wins in just four days of racing.

Last year the win was not enough to take over the leader's jersey but this year the initial prologue had moved Boom into 3rd overall. Today's win moved him into the overall lead with just one final stage to come.

That stage is completely flat and is expected to end up in another Kittel-Greipel-Cavendish showdown and so Boom has a good chance of taking the win in the big Dutch stage race.

Result:

1. Lars Boom

2. Davide Rebellin

3. Maurits Lammertink

More results to come