The 186.7-kilometer stage four at the Ster ZLM Toer, labeled the queen stage of the five-day event, ended in a reduced bunch sprint for the uphill finish into La Gileppe. Boy van Poppel and Matthew Busche arrived with around 40 riders into the finale, and with no Danny for the sprint it was up to Boy to contest the uphill finish; the team’s super domestique, normally the prime leadout for his brother, managed a respectable 13th place.

Moreno Hofland (LottoNL-Jumbo) won the stage and André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) successfully defended his lead in the overall with a 10th place finish. At one point today I thought maybe it could end in a sprint with Danny van Poppel, but he was missing just a bit to be there at the end.

“We tried to get in the breakaway - the idea was to put [Matthew] Busche into the action today as we figured he was our best chance on this course, although in the end it came to a sprint,” Director Adriano Baffi said.

“We had both Boy and Matthew in the group at the end, which was good.  Boy has good form from the Giro so he was able to make it to the end today, but when you are not a pure sprinter you are fighting for the right place, and it was not a great result, but for someone who is normally a helper it was the best we could do today.  And, of course, Matthew is not a sprinter for an ending like this.”

Danny van Poppel gave a huge effort today to amend yesterday’s frustrating performance where he was unable to contest the bunch sprint due to a day where he simply didn’t have the legs. The team will look to tomorrow’s final stage, a flatter parcours that is expected to end in a bunch sprint again, and give one more chance to the hungry young sprinter.

“At one point today I thought maybe it could end in a sprint with Danny, but he was missing just a bit to be there at the end. He was very frustrated yesterday to not be able to do a sprint, and today he tried to be there and was close on a very hard course. So tomorrow we will see again, normally it can be another sprint opportunity and we will go for it again,” Baffi said.