Jens Keukeleire has continued his strong form on the Queen stage of the Eneco Tour, finishing in a select front group to gain another position in the general classification battle. The 25-year-old moves into 9th position overall ahead of the final day’s racing after his effort for 14th on stage six today.

Tim Wellens (LTB) took out the stage victory from a solo attack and moves into the overall lead, 56 seconds ahead of Keukeleire.

“It was a really hard stage, a mini Liege-Bastogne-Liege,” sport director Matt Wilson said.

“Jens was covering everything that was there and just in the last couple of climbs he started to run out of legs. 

“Rather than defending he was trying to take time. You take risks going for some of those moves ahead of the finish but there is no point sitting back and waiting, you have to try.”

“From there it was really a question of following and not losing any time and he managed to move up on GC (general classification) which is great.”

After assistance from teammates in the earlier parts of the stage Keukeleire was again isolated on the final lap, a position shared by a number of others in the front group.

“We knew like yesterday that it was all going to be about that last lap so the guys did a fantastic job at keeping him fresh until that point,” Wilson said.

“Again he was isolated on the last lap, we don’t really have a rider here for that terrain unfortunately but he did well.”

The Eneco Tour wraps up tomorrow with a seventh and final stage – a 183.4km journey from Riemst to Sittard-Geleen featuring familiar roads from the Amstel Gold Race.