After a number of near-misses, it was finally Andre Greipel's day in the Eneco Tour as the German powered clear on the finishing straight to win the fourth stage of the race. Lars Boom (Belkin) proved his ability as a sprinter by finishing a surprising 3rd in his home city of Vlijmen, thus taking over the leader's jersey on the eve of the crucial time trial.

It had been a frustrating Eneco Tour for Andre Greipel so far as the German had missed out on the two first sprint opportunities in the race when late breakaways had made it all the way to the finish. Today the stars finally aligned for the powerful German as he took a convincing win on the fourth stage.

Greipel benefitted from a fantastic lead-out from Jurgen Roelandts - the man who by mistake had drawn clear the group in yesterday's stage - and Greipel was always well-placed when the peloton powered through the tricky final and its many turns. When he finally put down the hammer himself, no one was even close to the Gorilla who was far ahead of his rivals.

The man to open the sprint was a surprising protagonist. Inspired by the finish in his home town, Lars Boom (Belkin) placed himself in Roelandts wheel and was the first to put down the hammer when Roelandts finished his job. The Dutchman held on to take 3rd behind Giacomo Nizzolo (Radioshack) who did another fantastic sprint to once again make it Greipel and the Italian in the top 2 in the peloton's sprint.

With the 3rd place, Boom was awarded 4 bonus seconds and that was enough for him to move into the lead on GC, 1 second ahead of Greipel while overnight leader Arnaud Demare (FDJ) slips to third, 2 seconds further adrift. Boom now has a solid lead over most of his GC rivals ahead of the three crucial stages.

The first of those is the tomorrow's 13,2km time trial in the hilly Limburg province. As the current leader, Boom will be the last rider down the ramp on a stage that will give the first clear indications of the potential winners of this year's Eneco Tour.

A four-rider break

The 169,6km stage from Essen to Vlijmen was completely flat and regarded as the final opportunity for the sprinters in this year's race. With a bunch sprint on the cards and numerous frustrated sprinters in the field, everybody knew that the break was doomed and so the early break was established almost immediately.

Pieter Jacobs (Topsport Vlaanderen), Ioannis Tamouridis (Euskaltel), Staf Scheirlinckx (Accent.jobs) and Pim Ligthart (Vacansoleil) got clear and at the 7,5km mark they already had a 3.40 gap. It was allowed to grow up beyond the 5-minute mark when the FDJ team of race leader Demare took control of the peloton.

FDJ sets the early pace

For a long time Arnold Jeannesson and David Boucher swapped turns on the front and those two riders made sure to keep the gap stable. Despite the flat nature of the course, there was, however, a very tense atmosphere in the main group and the pace was automatically picked up as more and more riders moved to the front to get into a good position.

As the riders passed the finish line to start the first of two laps on the 28,3km finishing circuit, Lotto-Belisol had now joined forces with FDJ, adding Gert Dockx to the chase and the gap was now coming down quickly. With 56km to go, Katusha made a surprise move as they put their entire team on the front and siginficantly upped the pace.

The peloton splits up

While all of the Russian team's riders except lead sprinter Alexander Porsev rotated on the front, gaps in the main group started to open up and a big group containing the likes of Theo Bos (Belkin), Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) and Bradley Wiggins (Sky) lost contact. A fierce chase ensued until the group had finally rejoined the main peloton.

Katusha continued their acceleration for a while but with 47km to go, they realized that they would get nowhere. Matthew Hayman (Sky) and Vladimir Isaychev (Katusha) exploited the brief lull in the pace to get off the front but Mickael Delage (FDJ) was quick to react and brought it back together.

Orica-GreenEdge and Lotto-Belisol in control

Instead, it was Orica-GreenEdge and Lotto-Belisol who took control and for a long time Svein Tuft, Luke Durbridge, Jens Mouris and Dockx were responsible for the pace-setting. Behind, the different teams started to organize their troops as the gap was now down to less than a minute and bunch kick looking as the likely outcome.

Sprints leader Laurens De Vreese (Topsport Vlaanderen) was intent on picking up the final two points on offer in the first Primus Sprint but Hayman had different plans and moved ahead to cross the line as the first rider in the peloton.

Ligthart attacks

As they crossed the line to start the final lap, the gap was down to just 30 seconds and so Ligthart decided to attack. Jacobs bridged across with Tamouridis in his wheel while Scheirlinckx decided that he had had enough and fell back into the peloton.

The peloton gradually got more nervous and when Orica-GreenEdge stopped their effort, Belkin and Omega Pharma-Quick Step formed trains in each side of the road. With a Garmin train in between, the three-headed field edged closer and closer to the front group.

No luck for Ligthart

With 17km to go, Ligthart punctured out of the break while Jacobs decided to give up 5km further up the road. Tamouridis persisted for another couple of kilometres before it was finally brought back together.

With 10km to go, Lotto-Belisol took control with Jens Debusschere and Frederik Willems but they quickly left it to Saxo-Tinkoff to lead the peloton. Takashi Miyazawa was first in line and later Matti Breschel took over the pace-setting.

Breschel gets a gap

The Dane gapped the peloton and as confusion arose a big crash brought down most of the Astana train and left a big gap in the peloton. Breschel realized that he got nowhere and fell back into the peloton which was now led by Jos Van Emden from the Belkin train.

Having lost lead sprinter Marko Kump in the crash, Saxo-Tinkoff changed strategy and put all their eggs in the Jonathan Cantwell basket and Daniele Bennati led the peloton as they passed under the 2km to go banner. That was when Lotto-Belisol kicked into action with Jonas Vangenechten leading all the way to the flamme rouge.

Roelandts took over from there, safely negotiating the final tricky corners with Boom and Greipel in his wheel. The defending champion was the first to open his sprint but Greipel had no trouble getting around the Dutchman, thus taking his 6th ever win in the race.

Result:

1. Andre Greipel 3.47.35

2. Giacomo Nizzolo

3. Lars Boom

4. Alessandro Petacchi

5. Alexander Porsev

6. Tyler Farrar

7. Jens Keukeleire

8. Elia Viviani

10. Chris Sutton

General classification:

1. Lars Boom 16.06.14

2. Andre Greipel +0.01

3. Arnaud Demare +0.03

4. Zdenek Stybar +0.06

5. Philippe Gilbert +0.07

6. Tyler Farrar +0.09

7. Alessandro Petacchi +0.13

8. Giacomo Nizzolo +0.15

9. Taylor Phinney +0.17

10. Pieter Jacobs

Points classification:

1. Andre Greipel 75

2. Giacomo Nizzolo 66

3. Lars Boom 63

4. Alessandro Petacchi 47

5. Maximiliano Richeze 44

6. Pieter Jacobs 37

7. Tyler Farrar 37

8. Taylor Phinney 32

9. Laurens De Vreese 31

10. Arnaud Demare 30

Sprints classification:

1. Laurens De Vreese 66

2. Matthew Hayman 36

3. Pieter Jacobs 30

4. Tim Declercq 28

5. Benjamin Verraes 22

6. Gediminas Bagdonas 22

7. Jelle Wallays 18

8. Pim Ligthart 10

9. Matthieu Ladagnous 8

10. Matti Breschel 8

Teams classification:

1. Omega Pharma-Quick Step 48.19.32

2. FDJ.fr +0.03

3. Orica-GreenEdge +0.07

4. Belkin +0.10

5. BMC

6. Saxo-Tinkoff +0.21

7. Katusha +0.26

8. Radioshack +0.28

9. Euskaltel +0.33

10. Topsport Vlaanderen