Description
June 20, 2025
94th Baloise Belgium Tour 2025 🇧🇪 (2.Pro) ME – Stage 3 ITT – Tessenderlo – Ham : 9,7 km
The Tour of Belgium (Dutch: Ronde van België;
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June 20, 2025
94th Baloise Belgium Tour 2025 🇧🇪 (2.Pro) ME – Stage 3 ITT – Tessenderlo – Ham : 9,7 km
The Tour of Belgium (Dutch: Ronde van België; French: Tour de Belgique) is a five-day bicycle race which is held annually in Belgium, and is part of the UCI ProSeries.
Ethan Hayter pulled off a spectacular surprise time trial victory over runaway top favourite Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) in stage 3 of the Baloise Belgium Tour, with the additional considerable bonus prize of moving into the overall lead.
Hayter beat the Italian specialist and former Ineos teammate by a narrow but sufficient four seconds to claim his first triumph in nearly a year, and also his first since signing for Soudal-QuickStep in 2025. Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates) was third, a comparatively distant 16 seconds back.
Hayter was one of the earliest starters in the flat, largely untechnical 9.7 kilometre course between Tessenderlo and Ham. During nearly two hours of waiting, barring Ganna nobody came close to challenging the 26-year-old Londoner’s blisteringly fast time of 10:30.
Hayter will now go into Saturday’s crunch hilly stage in southern Belgium with a GC advantage of two seconds on second-placed Ganna, with Vermeersch lying third, 15 seconds down.
“It’s been a while in the hot seat, you start getting quite nervous, but to win – it’s great,” Hayter said after managing to put a TT rival as prestigious as Ganna to the sword.
“It’s really nice to take my first win for the team, it’s not been my easiest start to the year but the team have been really patient with me and it’s nice to pay them back a bit.”
“It was quite a short TT, so we didn’t really have a plan. I went out quite fast, with a bit of tailwind on the climbs and then I went harder on the way back, all out to the line.”
How it Unfolded
On a hot, dry day in central Belgium, former Swiss TT champion Joel Sutter (Tudor) became the first rider to break the glass ceiling of 11 minutes for the course with a time of 10:56, only for Czech Jozef Čzerny, (Soudal-QuickStep), also a former National TT Champion, to go two seconds better almost immediately afterwards.
However, the best time was then set by some considerable distance by Hayter, whose five-second margin at the mid-stage checkpoint on Čzerny ballooned to a comparatively massive 25 seconds by the finish.
This was admittedly a very fast course with some segments running through parkland and others switching to some broader highways, but globally the route always remained almost completely flat, with the weather conditions undoubtedly favouring some super-quick times, too. Yet no one, it seemed, could come close to Hayter’s time, clocked at a jaw-droppingly rapid average speed of 55.6kmh, with compatriot Connor Swift (Ineos Grenadiers) remaining the next best placed on the provisional standings, over 18 seconds back, for the best part of an hour.
Then when Swift was beaten, former U23 World Champion Filippo Baroncini (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was only a couple of seconds better, leaving Hayter in his dominating position.
Some of the biggest hitters were still to come, though, given Hayter was the 56th starter of the 146 on the day. An outsider like Nils Eekhoff (Picnic-PostNL) proved to be just six seconds slower than Hayter at the mid-way check and GC contender Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was two seconds slower at the split, too. But both fell off the pace notably in the second half, leaving all eyes on the arch-favourite, Filippo Ganna as the one major obstacle between Hayter and victory.
The multiple Italian National TT Champion and former double World TT Champion cruised down the start ramp with his usual faultlessly elegant style, near-perfect aerodynamic position and lightness of cadence all on display. No matter that this was his first race back since Paris-Roubaix in the sprint, from the get-go, the Ineos Grenadiers star was clearly on the road to challenging Hayter, and perhaps the 28th time trial victory of his glittering career as well.
However, appearances proved deceptive, and Ganna too, was two seconds slower than Hayter at the split, ensuring, like everybody else, that only a strong turnaround in the second half could give him a chance of challenging Hayter. No matter how fast Ganna turned the pedals and how good he looked on the bike in terms of pure aesthetics, though, little by little Hayter’s advantage opened up further and further and by the time Ganna powered into the final kilometre it was obvious he would not be able – not yet, at least – to add a second win to his only triumph of 2025 to date, the opening stage of Tirreno-Adriatico.
The final clutch of sprinters due to finish after Ganna all delivered respectable but not overly striking times, with race leader Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) more concerned about making the time cut after puncturing on a right-hand bend and needing a replacement bike. Hayter’s victory was in the bag, then, and even if he fails to keep control overall between now and Brussels next Sunday, the psychological hurdle of taking his first win with his new team – and against Ganna to boot – has now been passed with flying colours.
Hayter was cautiously optimistic about his chances on the next stage, the toughest of the entire race with nearly 3,000 metres of vertical climbing and which will take the riders on a very hilly trek through southern Belgium, starting and finishing on the short but steep Mur de Durbuy.
“The plan is for me to defend the jersey, it’s a tricky stage but we’ll do our best” Hayter said. “Then another win on Sunday with Tim [Merlier, stage 1 winner and teammate] would be the best way to finish it off.”
Results :
 ME - Stage 3 ITT </strong> - Tessenderlo - Ham : 9,7 km
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The Tour of Belgium (Dutch: Ronde van België; French: Tour de Belgique) is a five-day bicycle race which is held annually in Belgium, and is part of the UCI ProSeries.
Ethan Hayter pulled off a spectacular surprise time trial victory over runaway top favourite Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) in stage 3 of the Baloise Belgium Tour, with the additional considerable bonus prize of moving into the overall lead.
Hayter beat the Italian specialist and former Ineos teammate by a narrow but sufficient four seconds to claim his first triumph in nearly a year, and also his first since signing for Soudal-QuickStep in 2025. Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates) was third, a comparatively distant 16 seconds back.
Hayter was one of the earliest starters in the flat, largely untechnical 9.7 kilometre course between Tessenderlo and Ham. During nearly two hours of waiting, barring Ganna nobody came close to challenging the 26-year-old Londoner's blisteringly fast time of 10:30.
Hayter will now go into Saturday's crunch hilly stage in southern Belgium with a GC advantage of two seconds on second-placed Ganna, with Vermeersch lying third, 15 seconds down.
"It's been a while in the hot seat, you start getting quite nervous, but to win - it's great," Hayter said after managing to put a TT rival as prestigious as Ganna to the sword.
"It's really nice to take my first win for the team, it's not been my easiest start to the year but the team have been really patient with me and it's nice to pay them back a bit."
"It was quite a short TT, so we didn't really have a plan. I went out quite fast, with a bit of tailwind on the climbs and then I went harder on the way back, all out to the line."
<strong>How it Unfolded</strong>
On a hot, dry day in central Belgium, former Swiss TT champion Joel Sutter (Tudor) became the first rider to break the glass ceiling of 11 minutes for the course with a time of 10:56, only for Czech Jozef Čzerny, (Soudal-QuickStep), also a former National TT Champion, to go two seconds better almost immediately afterwards.
However, the best time was then set by some considerable distance by Hayter, whose five-second margin at the mid-stage checkpoint on Čzerny ballooned to a comparatively massive 25 seconds by the finish.
This was admittedly a very fast course with some segments running through parkland and others switching to some broader highways, but globally the route always remained almost completely flat, with the weather conditions undoubtedly favouring some super-quick times, too. Yet no one, it seemed, could come close to Hayter's time, clocked at a jaw-droppingly rapid average speed of 55.6kmh, with compatriot Connor Swift (Ineos Grenadiers) remaining the next best placed on the provisional standings, over 18 seconds back, for the best part of an hour.
Then when Swift was beaten, former U23 World Champion Filippo Baroncini (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was only a couple of seconds better, leaving Hayter in his dominating position.
Some of the biggest hitters were still to come, though, given Hayter was the 56th starter of the 146 on the day. An outsider like Nils Eekhoff (Picnic-PostNL) proved to be just six seconds slower than Hayter at the mid-way check and GC contender Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was two seconds slower at the split, too. But both fell off the pace notably in the second half, leaving all eyes on the arch-favourite, Filippo Ganna as the one major obstacle between Hayter and victory.
The multiple Italian National TT Champion and former double World TT Champion cruised down the start ramp with his usual faultlessly elegant style, near-perfect aerodynamic position and lightness of cadence all on display. No matter that this was his first race back since Paris-Roubaix in the sprint, from the get-go, the Ineos Grenadiers star was clearly on the road to challenging Hayter, and perhaps the 28th time trial victory of his glittering career as well.
However, appearances proved deceptive, and Ganna too, was two seconds slower than Hayter at the split, ensuring, like everybody else, that only a strong turnaround in the second half could give him a chance of challenging Hayter. No matter how fast Ganna turned the pedals and how good he looked on the bike in terms of pure aesthetics, though, little by little Hayter's advantage opened up further and further and by the time Ganna powered into the final kilometre it was obvious he would not be able - not yet, at least - to add a second win to his only triumph of 2025 to date, the opening stage of Tirreno-Adriatico.
The final clutch of sprinters due to finish after Ganna all delivered respectable but not overly striking times, with race leader Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) more concerned about making the time cut after puncturing on a right-hand bend and needing a replacement bike. Hayter's victory was in the bag, then, and even if he fails to keep control overall between now and Brussels next Sunday, the psychological hurdle of taking his first win with his new team - and against Ganna to boot - has now been passed with flying colours.
Hayter was cautiously optimistic about his chances on the next stage, the toughest of the entire race with nearly 3,000 metres of vertical climbing and which will take the riders on a very hilly trek through southern Belgium, starting and finishing on the short but steep Mur de Durbuy.
"The plan is for me to defend the jersey, it's a tricky stage but we'll do our best" Hayter said. "Then another win on Sunday with Tim [Merlier, stage 1 winner and teammate] would be the best way to finish it off."
<strong>Results : </strong>
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