Sitting in second overall, Tom Dumoulin has not yet given up hope that he can take the leader's jersey off Tony Martin's shoulders in the Tour of Belgium. He attacked the race leader in stage 4 but the strong Omega Pharma-Quick Step team was able to bring him back.

Stage 4 of the Baloise Belgium Tour finally ended up in a sprint for the stage honours, where Koen De Kort went fastest in seventh, however it was not after a strong move from Tom Dumoulin in the final kilometres in a bid to gain ground in the General Classification.

Dumoulin launched his strong solo move with five kilometres remaining but it wasn’t to be and the fast pace of the leading bunch was too much to hold off. He was eventually swallowed up by the charging peloton from which Andre Greipel (Lotto Belisol) pulled through to take the stage.

Six riders formed the break of the day on stage four and Brian Bulgac was present for Team Giant-Shimano showing strong form after a short break following a heavy fall at the Tour de Picardie just two weeks ago.

Their gap never grew much beyond a couple of minutes and in the final six kilometres it all came back together. It was at this point that Dumoulin tried his luck, striking out alone but he was not allowed much room and was brought back into the fold shortly after. From there in it was a fight of lead-outs for the bunch sprint and with Jonas Ahlstrand not present in the front group, De Kort was given the green light to go for a result himself. He pulled out a respectable finishing effort to finish inside the top 10 round out another competitive day in Belgium for Team Giant-Shimano.

Team Giant-Shimano coach, Aike Visbeek said after the stage: “We wanted to try something today and he guys did this with Brian first getting up front to take the pressure off behind and then Tom going late on to try and get a gap.

“We said before that if Jonas was not in the front group the Koen could go for the sprint himself and test himself and he did a strong sprint to finish seventh. Tomorrow will be another chance for the team and with Tom still in second and in the white jersey there is still lots to race for.”