Tom Van Asbroeck sprinted to fourth in the third stage of the Tour de l’Eurométropole. The Belgian sprinter found himself boxed in for a moment with 250 metres to go, just when stage winner Edward Theuns (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise) profited.
 
“The chaos of the bunch sprint stopped me from winning today,” Van Asbroeck said after the stage. “You have to be a bit lucky sometimes, and I wasn’t today. There wasn’t enough space. Everything went quite well until the last 300 metres. On the right side and on the left side, there was someone ahead of me. That forced me to slow down for a few seconds. I wasn’t able to push through.”
 
Intermediate sprint
“It wasn’t quite exciting during the rest of the stage,” Sports Director Erik Dekker added. “It took a hundred kilometres before a breakaway was able to go clear, but the race was under control afterwards. There was one intermediate sprint where everyone was still together. We tried to grab some bonus seconds with Martijn Keizer, but all the sprinters were there so it was a hell of a job.”
 
With only one stage to go, Keizer is still runner-up in the general classification at three seconds back.
“We have to take a look at Martijn’s chances of winning this race,” Dekker said. “It’s going to be a short final stage so everyone has to go all out.”