Ben Healy went on the attack again in the finale of the last stage at Tour de Wallonie yesterday when he got across to the remains of the stage-long breakaway in the hope of fighting for a stage win.
The 214.8km stage from Le Roeulx to Chapelle-lez-Herlaimont featured 20km of cobbled sections, with the peloton shredded and multiple groups finishing scattered over the course, with a large number of abandons.
While a strong breakaway group of 14 riders managed to break clear, their lead was kept under two minutes and they never looked like making it all the way. When the gap had fallen to just over one minute with some 35km to go, Irish rider Healy made his move.
The EF-Education-EasyPost rider broke free with Sep Vanmarcke (Israel-Premier Tech) and Patrick Gamper (Bora-Hansgrohe), Luc Wirtgen (Bingoal Pauwels Sauces WB) and Aaron van Poucke (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise). And while that group was soon whittled back as Healy and Vanmarcke piled on the pressure, the survivors caught the last five breakaway men out front.
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However, race leader Robert Stannard and his Alpecin-Deceuninck team contributed to the chasing back in the bunch and eventually all of the breakaway men were mopped up. It was the third stage of the race that Healy spent time out front in the breakaways.
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Jan Bakelants (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) took a popular stage victory yesterday'; attacking off the front in the closing 2km and just about holding off the remains of the peloton. Stannard took the sprint for 2nd place, to wrap up his overall victory, and very nearly passed Bakelants on the line.
Healy ended the stage in 29th place, among the 32 riders left in the peloton. Eddie Dunbar (Ineos Grenadiers) was 90th in a group at 15:15. Healy finished 15th overall at 3:03 while Dunbar was 67th at 24:32.
