With nearly two thousand metres of climbing, the queen stage was on the agenda for day four of the Danish stage race. Van Baarle saw teammate Axel Zingle try several times, but the Frenchman also failed to close the gap to the solo leader Pedersen.

In the final phase, Van Baarle fought his way to eighth place, meaning the Dutchman heads into the final day sitting tenth in the general classification.

“It was a very tough race”, Van Baarle admitted afterwards. “Pedersen was on another level today. As a team, we tried to close the gap, but unfortunately we couldn’t. After that, the focus shifted to the minor placings, and I tried to get a good sprint in. Overall, I can say it was a reasonably good day for me personally. As a team, of course, we had hoped for a bit more.”