Having been beaten in the two obvious sprint stages at the Tour of Belgium, André Greipel and Lotto Belisol took off with the plan to make today's fourth stage of the race end in a bunch sprint. Despite the hilly terrain, the team accomplished its mission and Greipel took what seemed to be an easy win in the uphill finale.

This afternoon André Greipel won the fourth stage of the Baloise Belgium Tour in an impressive way. Lacs de l'Eau d'Heure was the start and finish place of this 177.7 kilometers long hilly stage in which the Petit Poggio had to be climbed four times.

Three riders set up a breakaway pretty early, but Lotto Belisol kept the situation under control together with the team of GC leader Tony Martin.

The escapees were caught in time and all new attempts were quickly caught. André Greipel was the fastest. The German champion beat Roman Maikin and Philippe Gilbert.

"We worked hard to let it end with a bunch sprint today," he said. "Frederik Willems was pulling on the head of the peloton together with Omega Pharma – QuickStep to get the escapees back.

"When the break was caught we had to avoid other attempts and organize ourselves for the sprint of course. That went well and so the guys could do a perfect lead-out. It was important for us to get that win here in the Belgium Tour.

"Before the start of this stage race I had it in my mind there could be a chance to win here. The team believed in it as well. We were happy we achieved a bunch sprint. The guys already went really fast in the lead-out, I just hit it as hard as I could.

"On day one the fastest won and in stage two we didn't get the organization we wanted due to several circumstances. Today we made it better. After this race ends tomorrow our next goal is the Tour de Luxembourg."